Imnrrmtg  0f  iubuque 

SEMINARY  LIBRARY 


ACC.  NO.     24995 
CLASS. 


808.5 


BOOK 


L236 


OLIYEB  WENDELL  HOLMES.  ARTEMUS  WARD.  BRET  HABTE. 

THE  FAT  CONTBIBtTTOK.  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  BILL  MYE. 

MBS.  PARTINGTON.  PETROLEUM  V.  NASBY.  PBOCTOB  KNOTT. 

KOBERT  J.  BDBDETTE.  JOSH  BILLINGS.  JCLI  PERKINS. 


DANBCBY  NEWS  MAN. 
GEOHGE  W.  PICK. 
M.  QUAD. 
MARE  TWAIN. 


WISE,    WITTY,    ELOQUENT 


KINGS 


OF  THE 


PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT 


BY 


MELVILLE   D.  LANDON 


Biographies,  Reminiscences  and  Lectures  of 


WARD  SAM   COX  BILL   ARP 

PECK 

|OSHBn.L,NGS  g^'MSB!**"  glgT£ACRlBELE 

ELI   PERKINS 

and  the  Master  Lectures  of 

T    DEWITT  TALMAGE          DWIGHT  L.  MOODY  SAM  JONES 

CHAUNCEY  M    DEPEW        ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL        JOHN   B  ;-  GOUGH 

5SIN?§S!c  PHILLIPS        iuctlNHE  SFPiETgE°N  KABCUETLGERREELEY 

i?AX   O'RELL  JOSEPH   PARKER  ROBT.   COLLYER 

AND 

PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES    AND    ANECDOTES    OF 
NOTED    AMERICANS 


UllustrateD 


THE    WERNER  CO. 

CHICAGO. 

1893. 


DUBUQUE 
SEAMNARYTO^ARY 


COPYRIGHTED. 
BKLFOBD-CLABKE  Co 

1890. 
All  Rights  Reserved. 


L3 


ANNOUNCEMENT. 


Many  of  the  great  lectures  in  "Kings  of  the  Platform  and 
Pulpit"  are  published  from  the  manuscripts  of  the  distinguished 
authors. 

The  illustrations  which  appear,  with  the  literary  accompani- 
ment of  pen  pictures,  serve  to  make  the  personality  of  these  noted 
characters  distinct  and  life-like. 

"  Kings  of  the  Platform  and  Pulpit  "  contains  the  most  com- 
prehensive resume  of  the  humor,  wisdom,  philosophy  and  religion 
of  the  century.  The  book  also  abounds  in  anecdotes,  epigrams, 
lectures  and  reminiscences  —  both  personal  and  political  —  of  a  vast 
number  of  famous  Americans. 

The  following  list  of  noms  de  plume  of  noted  men  of  letters, 
•  many  of  whom  have  contributed  to  these  pages,  will  be  of  interest 

\t 


• 
*^      the  reader. 


DISTINGUISHED  LECTURERS,  HUMORISTS  AND  WRITERS. 

*'  Josh  Billings  "—Henry  W.  Shaw.  "  Old  Si  "—Samuel  W.  Small. 

*'  Andrew  Jack  Downing  "—  Seba  R.  Smith.  "  Orpheus  C.  Kerr  "—Robert  H.  Newell. 

*'  Artemus  Ward  "—Charles  Farrar  Browne.  "  Peleg  Wales  "—  Wm.  A.  Croffut. 

*'  Bill  Arp  "—Charles  H.  Smith.  "  Peter  Plymley  "—Sidney  Smith. 

**  Gath  "—George  Alfred  Townsend.  "  Miles  O'Reilly  "—Charles  G.  Halpin. 

t_      "  Fat  Contributor  "—A.  Miner  Griswold.  "  Peter  Parley  "—  H.  C.  Goodrich. 

p     "  Hawkeye  Man  "—Robert  J.  Burdette.  "  Ned  Buntline  "—Col.  Judson. 

"  Howadjii  "—George  William  Curtis.  "  Brick  Pomeroy  "—  M.  M.  Pomeroy. 

Mk    *'  Ik  Marvel  "—Donald  Grant  Mitchell.  "  Josiah  Allen's  Wife  "—Marietta  Holley. 

*'  James  Yellowplush  "—  Wm.  H.  Thackeray.  "  Doesticks  "—Mortimer  M.  Thompson. 

"John  Paul  "-Charles  H.  Webb.  "  Mrs.  Partington  "—  Benj.  P.  Shillaber. 

"  John  Phoenix  "—  Capt.  George  H.  Derby.  "  Spoopendyke  "—Stanley  Huntley. 

"  Mark  Twain  "—Samuel  L.  Clemens.  "  Uncle  Remus  "—Joel  Chandler  Harris. 

"Max  Adler  "—Charles  H.  Clark.  "  Hosea  Bigelow  "—James  Russell  Lowell. 

"  Eli  Perkins  "—Melville  D.  Landon.  "  Fanny  Fern  "—Sara  Payson  Willis. 

•     "Petroleum  V.  Nasby"—  David  Locke.  "Grand  Father  Lickshingle"  —  Robert  W. 
^    "  Bill  Nye  "—Edgar  W.  Nye.  Criswell. 

*v  "Danbury  News  Man"—  Jas.  M.  Bailey.  "M.  Quad  "—Charles  B.  Lewis. 


KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 
CONTENTS. 


"ARTEMUS  WAED  "—Charles  Farrar  Browne.  PAGE 

Biography  and  Reminiscences, 19 

Panoramic  Lecture,        ........  33 

Programme  used  at  Egyptian  Hall,  London,           ...  67 

Programme  used  at  Dodworth  Hall,  New  York,            .         .  71 

"JOSH  BILLINGS  "—Henry  W.  Shaw. 

Biography  and  Eeminiscences,       .         ,         .         .         .        .  76 

Lecture  :  Wit,  Philosophy  and  Wisdom,      . .         .         „         .  80 

Synopsis  of  the  Lecture  by  "Josh,"       .....  79 

Advice  to  Lecture  Committees,      ....  91 

Twelve  Square  Remarks,        .......  94 

"Josh  Billings'  Aulminax," 95 

" PETROLEUM  V.  NASBY"— D.  R.Locke. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,  ,    .       ,  *        .        .         .         .  98 

Lecture  on  The  Woman  Question,        •'«••        .        .         .         .  100 

Nasby's  Best  Story,        ...'.-       .        .        .         .         .  120 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       ......  124 

Twain's  Humorous  Sketch  of  Beecher's  Farm,       .         .         .  137 

Gems  of  Thought  from  Beecher's  Lectures,             ...  139 

THE  "HAWKEYS  MAN  "—Robert  J.  Burdette. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       ......  147 

Lecture:     Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Mustache,      .         .         .         .  149 

Romance  of  the  Carpet,  a  poem,             .         .         .         .        .  181 

Burdette's  Masterpiece, 183 


il  CONTENTS. 

"ELI  PERKINS"— Melville  D.  Landon.  PAGE 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       ......  188 

Lecture:     The  Philosophy  of  Wit  and  Humor,      .         .         .  194 

Eli  Perkins'  Stories  of  Children,             232 

Eli  Perkins'  Lecture  Ticket,                   ....  236 

THE  "  DANBURY  NEWS  MAN  "— J.  M.  Bailey. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       ......  239 

On  Putting  Up  a  Stove,         .         .        ...         :        .         .261 

JOHN  B.  GOUGH. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       ......  263 

Gough's  Great  Lecture,          .......  266 

GEORGE  W.  PECK. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       .         .         .         .         ...  275 

George  W.  Peck's  Great  Agricultural  Lecture,       .         .         .  277 

CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       ......  285 

Lecture:     England,  Ireland  and  Scotland,     ....  291 

"BILL  NYE  "—Edgar  W.  Nye. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences, 306 

Nye's  Best  Speeches  and  Lectures, 312 

The  Nye-Riley  Lecture,          .        .         .                  .         .         .  314 

The  Story  of  Little  George  Oswald,       *     .  ...        .         .         .  318 

Mr.  Riley's  Poem,  "Jim,"     .         .        - 319 

Riley's  "  Me  and  Mary," 321 

Nye's  Cyclone  Stories,            .        .        .        .         .         .         .  324 

Riley's  "Good-bye  er  Howdy-do,"         .         .        .         .         .  325 

Nye  Makes  Rome  Howl,         .         .        .         .      ^.      ..         .  326 

Bill  Nye's  Autobiography,     .         .        .        .        .         .         .  329 

ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,      «        .        .         .         .        .  332 

Lecture:     Liberty — Love — Patriotism,           .         .-       .         .  338 

IngersolPs  Vision,          .        .        .        .     >    .        .         .         .  340 

Ingersoll  on  Children,            .         .        ...        .         .  342 

Ingersoll  on  Woman,     .         ,'       .        .        '.         ._      .         .  344 

"MARK  TWAIN"— Samuel  L.  Clemens. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       .         .                  .         .         .  348 

Lectures  and  Dinner  Speeches,      .         .        .         .         .         .  351 

Mark  Twain's  Masterpiece,    .         .    '     .        .                          .  350 


CONTENTS.  lii 

WIGHT  L.  MOODY,  The  Great  Revivalist.  PAGE 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       .      .„,,..        .        *        .  360 

Moody's  Theology.     Anecdotes,  etc.      .         .       •*        .        -,  362 

T.  DEWITT  TALMAGE,  The  Great  Preacher. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       ....         .         .  378 

Talmage's  Lectures,       .         .         .         .         .        .         .         .  381 

Great  Temperance  Lecture,            .       '..               .         .'       .  387 

Gems  of  Thought,         .         .       ,.         .        ,        .         .-        .  393 

ROBERT  COLLYER,  The  Blacksmith  Preacher. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences, • .  399 

Lecture  to  Young  Men:     Two  Emigrants,     .....  403 

A  Psalm  of  Thanksgiving,     ......      ^.  410 

SAM  JONES,  Preacher,  Reformer,  Wit. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       .         .                  .                  .  411 

Great  Sermon,       ,   •     „.       .....      .         .         .         .  415 

"MRS.  PARTINGTON  "— Benjamin  P.  Shillaber. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       .         .         .         ...         .  425 

The  Partington  Lecture,        .        .         .         .         .        .         .  426 

"THE  FAT  CONTRIBUTOR"— A.  Miner  Griswold. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences, 431 

Philosophical  Lecture  on  Injun  Meal,             ....  433 

"BILL  ARP"— Major  Charles  H.  Smith. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences,       .                  .        .         .         .  437 

Bill  Arp's  Lecture,       •  .-  •            -   ».        .         .         .         .         .  440 

Bill  Arp  to  Artemus  Ward,  .'._..         .         .         .460 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 

Reminiscences,       .         .                  .-        «         .         .         ,:        .  464 

Beecher's  Estimate  of  Wendell  Phillips,         .        .  -       .         .  465 

ARCHDEACON  FARRAR. 

Archdeacon  Farrar  on  Seneca,       .         .         .         ;         .;       .  468 

PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING. 

Biography,     .         .         .         .         .         .         ;    •  '  ;        .         .  479 

Professor  Swing  on  a  Classical  Training,        ....  479 

C.  H.  SPURGEON,  The  Eloquent,  the  Earnest,  the  Beloved. 

Biography  and  Reminiscences, 491 

Mr.  Spurgeon's  Teaching, •       .         .  492 


iV  CONTENTS. 

KEV.  JOSEPH  PARKER,  The  Great  English  Preacher.  PAGE 

Reminiscences,       .        .         .         .        .        .         .         .         .  497 

A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN. 

Stories  of  Postmaster-General  John  "Wanamaker,           .         .         .  500 

Lowell's  Great  Poem, ,  '.              .         .  502 

Thurlow  Weed  on  Ingersoll,          .......  504 

Donn  Piatt's  Funny  Speech,         .        .        ....        .        .  507 

Joseph  Cook, '               .         .  509 

Dr.  Pentecost  on  God's  Approval, 510 

Edmund  Clarence  Stedman:     "Kearny  at  Seven  Pines,"     .         .  511 

Anecdotes :     Travers,  Stewart,  Clews  and  Jerome,       .         .         .  512 

K.  Q.  Philander  Doesticks,           .         .         ...         .         .  515 

Eugene  Field's  Lecture,        .         .        .        .        ;.        .        .518 

George  W.  Cable's  Readings,         .         .         ...         .         .  522 

Max  O'RelPs  Lecture  on  the  Scotchman, 525 

Bret  Harte:  Why  Bret  Harte  Murdered  a  Man,   .         .  ,      .         .  527 

Anecdotes  of  Gould,  Fisk  and  Drew,   ....       r\-        .  529 

John  J.  Crittenden's  Eloquence,           .                 .         .         .         .  535 

Roscoe  Conkling  and  Charles  O'Connor,       .....  536 

William  M.  Evarts  and  Chauncey  M.  Depew,       ....  536 

Jefferson  on  Franklin, 537 

Lincoln's  Illustration,                  .".        .        .         .         .         .         .  537 

Edward  Everett  on  Judge  Story,          .         .         .         .         .  '      .  538 

General  Sherman  on  "Pap"  Thomas, 538 

Garfield's  Wit, 539 

McCosh's  Impression,            .        .         .         ...         .         .  539 

Webster  on  Self -Evidence,   .        .        .        .        .        •         .        .  540 

David  B.  Hill  on  Grover  Cleveland,     .         ...        .         .         .  540 

President  Harrison  on  General  Scott,                    ;        .  540 

Fitz-Hugh  Lee  and  General  Kilpatrick,       .....  541 

Seward  Joked  by  Douglas,           f        ..'....  541 

Voorhees,  Tanner  and  Secretary  Noble,        .         .        '.  -        .         .  542 

"  M.  Quad  "—Charles  B.  Lewis,           .        .        .        .        .        .  543 

Thad  Stevens  and  Aleck  Stephens,       .                 ..*.-.         .  545 

Zach  Chandler  on  Democracy,      .......  546 

Elaine's  Kil-Ma-roo  Story,    .         .        .      ^  .        .        .         .         .  546 

Dr.  Hammond,  Dr.  Bliss  and  General  Sheridan,          .        .         .  547 
Chief  Justice  Fuller,    ...        .        .       .*        .         .         .         .548 

Judge  Olds,          .        .         .         .        .*  .         .        .         .548 

Gen.  Sickles  on  Howard's  Drummer,   ......  548 


CONTENTS.  V 

PAOK 

Greeley  taken  for  a  Clergyman,    .         .         .         .         .        .         .  549 

Sherman  and  President  Taylor,    .         .       V        .         .         .         .  550 

Senator  Evarts  and  Governor  Hill,       .         .         ...         .  550 

Sherman  and  Joseph  Jefferson,    .         .         .         .         .                 .  551 

Kobert  Toombs  and  John  B.  Floyd,      ......  551 

Joe  Brown,  Toombs  and  Alex.  Stephens,     .         .         .         ...  552 

Foraker  on  Daniel  Voorhees,        .         .         .         ...        ,  553 

Blaine,  Conkling,  Hamlin,            .         .         .         .         .         .        •,  553 

Longfellow's  Funny  Poem, 554 

Swing,  Collyer,  Jones  and  Fitz-Hugh  Lee,           ....  555 

Moseby,  Ellsworth,  Kilpatrick  and  Fitz-Hugh  Lee,  ..         .'•   "  ,  556 

Thaddeus  Stevens, •  •','•  556 

General  Logan's  Plain  Talk,         .        ..-         .         .">'•     .         .         .  556 

Longstreet  on  Fast  Marching, *  557 

General  Ewell  on  the  Irishman 557 

Henry  Watterson  on  Sumner  and  Greeley,             ....  558 

Wade  Hampton,  Sumner  and  Ben  Wade,     .         .         *        ...  559 

Sitting  Bull  and  General  Miles,             .         .         .        »        .         .  560 

How  Bishop  Potter  was  Introduced  to  Mayor  Grant,            .         .  560 

Phillip  D.  Armour, 561 

Susan  B.  Anthony,       .         .         .         .      '.  „        .         .         .         .  561 

The  Sharp  Retort, k         .        .  .       .         .  561 

Belmont  and  Buffalo  Bill,    .         .         .        .         ,        .         .         .  562 

Bayard  Taylor's  Joke,           .         .                  .        .         .         .         .  562 

Cox,  Butler,  Greeley,            .         .         .         •        ,        .         .         .  562 

Clara  Morris's  Joke  on  Mary  Anderson,        .         .        ,         .         .  566 

Lincoln  and  Stanton,            .         .         .         ...         .         .  566 

Jeff  Davis  Sees  Humor,        .         .        '.  .      .         .        \        .         »  567 

President  Arthur  Hears  an  Eloquent  Reply,          .         .         .      •  .  567 

Henry  Watterson  on  Oscar  Wilde,        .         ...         .         .  568 

General  Sheridan  on  General  Scott,      , • ....     .     ;   »  \    .        .         .    •  568 

General  Bragg  on  General  Price,          ,         .       : .         .      "-  .  '      .  569 

General  Lee  and  Jefferson  Davis,          .                  .                  .         .  569 

Lincoln's  Colored  Visitor,    .         .         .         .         «        .        «  .   '  >'•  569 

Sherman  in  Earnest,    .        *'      .        .        ...      .        .        .  57ft 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PORTRAITS.  PAQB 

Adams,  John,  President  U.  S.      .  :  .         .         .         .         .176 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  President  U.  S.          .         .         .         .         .176 

Anderson,  Mary,  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .464 

Armour,  Phillip  D 528 

Arthur,  Chester  A.,  President  U.  S 176 

Bailey,  James  Montgomery — "Danbury  News  Man"  .         .       238 

Banks,  N.  P 464 

Bayard,  T.  H.  .         .         .         .  .         ...'..         •       464 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward, .        123-368 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  ^Etat  50,  .         .  ."'•..         .       133 

Belmout,  August,          .........        528 

Bennett,  James  G .  .       464 

Blame,  James  G.  .........       288 

Browne,  Charles  Farrar — "  Artemus  Ward/'  It 

Browne,  Charles  Farrar — "Artemus  Ward/'  while  lecturing,       .         35 

Browne,  Mrs.  Caroline  E .        20 

Bryant,  W.  C.  V  .        .         .         .         .        .         .         ,  "     .      '.'/    464 

Buchanan,  James,  President  U.  S.        .         .         .         .         .         .       176 

Butler,  Benjamin  F .       288 

Burdette,  Robert  J -        .         .-       .         .       146 

Clemens,  Samuel  L. — "Mark  Twain,"       ';       'i         ^       '.'       .       347 
Cleveland,  G  rover,  President  U.  S.  .         ;         .         .         ."      176 

Clewes,  Henry,     .         .         .         .         .         ...         r         .       528 

Collyer,  Dr.  Robert,     .         j' •      .'      .         .         .         .        -.         .       368 

Conkling,  Roscoe,          .         ...         .         .         .         .         .       464 

Cooper,  Peter,       .         .         ;         .         ^         ..        .         .         .      '   .       464 

Curtis.  G.  W.        .         .         .         .         .         .         ...         .       464 

Cuyler,  Theo.  L.  *         .         »         v        .      ".         .'        ,         .       368 

Dana  Charles  A.  .         .         .         .;        .         .         .         .         .       464 

Davis,  Jefferson,  .........        288 


Vll 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Depew,  Chauncey  M.   . 

Drew,  Daniel, 

Edison,  Thomas  E 

Evarts,  William  M 

Eield,  Cyrus  W.  .... 

Fillmore,  Millard,  President  U.  S. 
Garfield,  James  A.,  President  U.  S.     . 
Gough,  John  B.  .... 

Gould,  Jay, 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  President  U.  S. 
Greeley,  Horace,  .... 

Hampton,  Wade,          .... 
Hancock,  Winfield  S.  ... 

Harrison,  William  H.,  President  TJ.  S. 
Harrison,  Benjamin,  President  U.  S. 
Hawley,  Joseph  R. 

Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  President  U.  S. 
Hill,  David  B.  .... 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell, 
Ingersoll,  Robert  G.     .         ... 
Jackson,  Andrew,  President  U.  S. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  President  U.  S. 
Johnson,  Andrew,  President  U.  S.. 
Landon,  Melville  D.— "Eli  Perkins," 
Lee,  General  Robt.  E.          ... 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  President  TJ.  S.      . 
Locke,  D.  R.— "  Petroleum  V.  Nasby," 
Logan,  General  John  A.       ... 
Longfellow,  Henry  W.          ... 
Lowell,  James  Russell, 
Madison,  James,  President  TJ.  S. 
Monroe,  James,  President  TJ.  S. 
Moody,  D  wight  L. 
Morris,  Clara,       •        . 
Nye,  Edgar  W.     .        .        .  ,     . 
Peck,  George  W.          .        .        . 
Phillips,  Wendell,         .... 
Pierce,  Franklin,  President  TJ.  S. 
Polk,  James  K.,  President  U.  S. 
Porter,  Admiral,  .        .  '     .        ., 

Potter,  Bishop  H.  C.    .        *      -  ; 


528 
464 
288 
464 
176 
176 

.  265 
528 

183-288 
464 
288 
288 
176 
176 
464 
176 
464 

Frontispiece 

.       331 

176 

176 

176 

.       187 

288 

176 

97 

288 

464 

Frontispiece 
r<6 
176 
368 
464 

.   305 

.   274 

464 

176 

.   176 

.   464 

308 


ILLUSTRATIONS.  viil 

PAGE 

Randall,  Samuel,           .         .         .        .        ,,        .         .         .-.  +  -.  464 

Reid,  Whitelaw,            ;        ...       ..'       .        .       ,,       •.      •„•  464 

Sankey,  Ira  D.      . 368 

Shaw,  Henry  W.— "  Josh  Billings/'    .         .         .         .         .         .  75 

Sherman,  Gen.  W.  T. .         .  288 

Stedman,  Edmund  C.,          .         .         .                  .         .         .         .  528 

Sheridan,  Gen.  Phil 288 

Sherman,  John,             .........  464 

Shillaber,  Benjamin  P. — "Mrs.  Partington,"       .         .         Frontispiece 

Smith,  Charles  H.— "  Bill  Arp," 436 

Spurgeon,  C.  H. 368 

Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher, 464 

Talmage,  T.  DeWitt, 368 

Taylor,  Zachary,  President  U.  S.          .         .         .         «."....         .  176 

Travers,  W.  R 528 

Tyler,  John,  President  U.  S .         ....  176 

Vanderbilt,  C. 528 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  President  U.  S 176 

Villard,  H. .        .  528 

Voorhees,  Daniel  W.             434 

"Washington,  George,  President  U.  S.           .         .      "  .         .         .  I^Q 

Watterson,  Henry, •  464 

Whitney,  W.  C .        .        .        -464 

FAC  SIMILES  OF  HANDWRITING. 

"  Artemus  Ward  "—Charles  F.  Browne, 25 

"Josh  Billings"— Henry  W.  Shaw,     .../..  77 

"Petroleum  V.  Nasby"— D.  R.  Locke, 99 

The  "  Hawkeye  Man "— Robert  J.  Burdette,        .         ,        .        '.  146 

The  "Danbury  News  Man "— J.  M.  Bailey,          ...         .        •.  24^ 

George  W.  Peck, .277 

"Bill  Nye"— Edgar  W.  Nye,       ...         .         .       \        v       .'  308 

"Mark  Twain " — Samuel  L.  Clemens, 348 

ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  ARTEMUS  WARD'S  PANORAMIC 

LECTURE. 

Steamer  Ariel,      .         .         .         .        .        .         .       '.        ...  39 

Great  Thoroughfare  of  the  Imperial  City  of  the  Pacific  Coast,     .  40 

Virginia  City,  Nevada,          .        ,•"       .        •         .        -.        .        •  41 

Plains  between  Virginia  City  and  Salt  Lake,         .         »,      .        .  42 

Bird's-eye  View  of  Salt  Lake  City, 43 


ix  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

West  Side  of  Main  Street,  Salt  Lake  City,    .                 ...         .  45 

The  Overland  Mail  Coach,            » 46 

The  Mormon  Theatre,          ........  47 

East  Side  of  Main  Street,  Salt  Lake  City,    .....  48 

Brigham  Young's  Harem, 49 

H.  C.  Kimball's  Harem, 51 

Mormon  Temple,          .........  53 

Foundations  of  the  Temple,          .......  54 

The  Temple  as  it  is  to  be, 55 

Great  Salt  Lake,           .........  56 

The  Endowment  House, .'  Y        .         .  57 

Echo  Canon, ,58 

A  More  Cheerful  View  of  The  Desert,           .....  59 

Our  Encounter  with  the  Indians,          .         .         .         .         .         .  60 

The  Rocky  Mountains,         ........  62 

The  Plains  of  Nebraska,       .         .         .         /      .         .         .         .  .      63 

The  Prairie  on  Fire, 64 

Brigham  Young  at  Home,            •     •%'•        •         •                 •         •  G5 

The  Curtain  Falls  for  the  Last  Time,           .         .        .        .         .  66 

MISCELLANEOUS    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Niggers  Don't  Kuow  Enough  to  Vote, 99 

Interior  of  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  .         .         .128 

Interior  of  Mr.  Beecher's  Study,  .         .         .         .         .         .140 

Would  You  Take  Anything,  Bridget  ?          ...         .         .       205 

Ben  Butler  Caricatured  by  Nast,  .....         .       228 

Can  I  Trust  You  to  Do  an  Errand  for  Me  ?          .         .         .         .       241 

Putting  up  a  Stove  Pipe,  .         ....         .         .         .       261 

Ycnng  Men,  Ahoy!       .         . 269 

Won't  the  Parson  Be  Surprised  ?        '  .      ' 277 

He's  a  Blooded  Dog,  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .       286 

Do  Not  Speak  of  It,  .         ...         .         .         •         •       311 

See  What  I  Have  Brought  You, 319 

Why,  Grandma,  You  Can't,  .         .         .         .  .         .       343 

Say,  Tom,  Let  me  Whitewash  a  Little?        .         .         ;         .         .357 
Hold  the  Fort!  .'•."..         .         .         .      -,         .         .376 

I  Never  Did  Like  Codfish,  .         .         .         *  -      .         .         .       381 

How  Do  You  Know,  Uncle  Jack  ?       .         .         .         .         .         .       400 

She  Made  Home  Happy, .422 

What  Is  the  Matter  with  You,  My  Friend  ?       .  .         .  •"  '   •.         .       431 
Flowers  and  Words  of  Encouragement,         .         .         .         .         .       438 

Mr.  Spurgeon,  Would  You  Allow  Me  to  Speak  to  You  ?       .         .       493 
He  Cried  and  Fell  to  the  Ground,         .         .         .         .         .         .       533 

What  Do  You  Mean,  Sir  ?  .         .         .         .         .         .         .       543 


"ARTEMUS    WARD/ 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

Charles  Farrar  Browne,  better  known  to  the  world  as  "Artemus  Ward,"  was 
6orn  at  Waterford,  Oxford  county,  Maine,  on  the  26th  of  April,  1834,  and  died  of 
consumption  at  Southampton,  England,  on  Wednesday,  the  6th  of  March,  1867. 
Artemus  Ward's  grandfather  (Thaddeus)  raised  five  sons  in  Waterford  —  Daniel, 
Malbory,  Jabez,  Levi  and  Thaddeus.  His  father  was  Levi  Browne,  who  died  in 
1847,  after  being  justice  of  the  peace  for  many  years.  His  mother,  Caroline  E. 
Browne,  died  in  1878.  She  was  a  woman  of  strong  character,  and  came  from  good 
Puritanic  stock. 

I  once  asked  Artemus  about  his  Puritanic  origin,  when  he  replied: 

"  I  think  we  came  from  Jerusalem,  for  my  father's  name  was 
Levi,  and  we  had  a  Moses  and  a  Nathan  in  the  family;  but  my  poor 
brother's  name  was  Cyrus ;  so,  perhaps,  that  makes  us  Persians." 

The  humorist  was  full  of  happy  wit  even  when  a  boy.  His 
mother,  from  whom  the  writer  received  several  letters,  told  me 
that  Artemus  was  out  very  late  one  night  at  a  spelling  bee,  and 
came  home  in  a  driving  snow-storm. 

"We  had  all  retired,"  said  Mrs.  Browne,  "and  Artemus  went 
around  the  house  and  threw  snow-balls  at  his  brother  Cyrus'  win- 
dow, shouting  for  him  to  come  down  quickly.  Cyrus  appeared  in 
haste,  and  stood  shivering  in  his  night-clothes. 

" '"Why  don't  you  come  in,  Charles?     The  door  is  open.' 

" '  Oh,'  replied  Artemus, '  I  could  have  gotten  in  all  right,  Cyrus ; 
but  I  called  you  down  because  I  wanted  to  ask  you  if  you  really 
thought  it  was  wrong  to  keep  slaves.' " 

Charles  received  his  education  at  the  Waterford  school,  until 
family  circumstances  induced  his  parents  to  apprentice  him  to  learn 
the  rudiments  of  printing  in  the  office  of  the  Skowhegan  Clarion, 
published  some  miles  to  the  north  of  his  native  village.  Here  he 
passed  through  the  dreadful  ordeal  to  which  a  printer's  "devil"  is 

2  19 


20  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

generally  subjected.     He  always  kept  his  temper ;  and  his  amusing 
jokes  are  even  now  related  by  the  residents  of  Skowhegan. 

In  the  spring  after  his  fifteenth  birthday,  Charles  Browne  bade 
farewell  to  the  Skowhegan  Clarion;  and  we  next  hear  of  him  in  the 
office  of  the  Carpet-Bag,  edited  by  B.  P.  Shillaber  ("  Mrs.  Parting- 
ton").  In  these  early  years  young  Browne  used  to  "set  up"  articles 
from  the  pens  of  Charles  G.  Halpine  (" Miles  O'Keilly")  and  John 
G.  Saxe,  the  poet.  Here  he  wrote  his  first  contribution  in  a  dis- 


guised  hand,  slyly  put  it  into  the  editorial  box,  and  the  next  day 
enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  setting  it  up  himself.  The  article  was 
a  description  of  a  Fourth-of-July  celebration  in  Skowhegan.  The 
spectacle  of  the  day  was  a  representation  of  the  Battle  of  York- 
town,  with  George  Washington  and  Gen.  Cornwallis  in  character. 
The  article  pleased  Mr.  Shillaber,  and  Mr.  Browne,  afterward 
speaking  of  it,  said :  "  I  went  to  the  theater  that  evening,  had  a. 
good  time  of  it,  and  thought  I  was  the  greatest  man  in  Boston." 

"While  engaged  on  the  Carpet- Bag,  the  subject  of  our  sketch 
closely  studied  the  theater  and  courted  the  society  of  actors  and 
actresses.  It  was  in  this  way  that  he  gained  that  correct  and  valuable 
knowledge  of  the  texts  and  characters  of  the  drama  which  enabled 
him  in  after  years  to  burlesque  them  so  successfully.  The  humorous 
writings  of  Seba  Smith  were  his  models,  and  the  oddities  of  "John 
Phoenix  "  were  his  especial  admiration. 


AETEMUS  WARD.  21 

Being  fond  of  roving,  Charles  Browne  soon  left  Boston,  and, 
after  traveling  as  a  journeyman  printer  over  much  of  New  York  and 
Massachusetts,  he  turned  up  in  the  town  of  Tiffin,  Seneca  county, 
Ohio,  where  he  became  reporter  and  compositor,  at  four  dollars  per 
week.  After  making  many  friends  among  the  good  citizens  of 
Tiffin,  by  whom  he  is  remembered  as  a  patron  of  side-shows  and 
traveling  circuses,  our  hero  suddenly  set  out  for  Toledo,  Ohio, 
where  he  immediately  made  a  reputation  as  a  writer  of  sarcastic 
paragraphs  in  the  columns  of  the  Toledo  Commercial.  He  waged 
a  vigorous  newspaper  war  with  the  reporters  of  the  Toledo 
JSlade,  but,  while  the  Blade  indulge'd  in  violent  vituperation, 
"Artemus  "  was  good-natured  and  full  of  humor.  His  column  soon 
gained  a  local  fame,  and  every  body  read  it.  His  fame  even  traveled 
as  far  as  Cleveland,  where,  in  1858,  when  Mr.  Browne  was  twenty- 
four  years  of  age,  Mr.  J.  W.  Gray,  of  the  Cleveland  Plaindealer, 
secured  him  as  local  reporter,  at  a  salary  of  twelve  dollars  per  week. 
Here  his  reputation  first  began  to  assume  a  national  character,  and 
it  was  here  that  they  called  him  a  "fool"  when  he  mentioned  the 
idea  of  taking  the  field  as  a  lecturer.  Speaking  of  this  circumstance, 
while  traveling  down  the  Mississippi  with  the  writer,  in  1865,  Mr. 
Browne  musingly  repeated  this  colloquy: 

WISE  MAN — "  Ah!  you  poor,  foolish  little  girl — here  is  a  dollar  for  you." 
FOOLISH  LITTLE  GIRL — "  Thank  you,  sir;  but  I  have  a  sister  at  home  as  foolish 
as  I  am;  can't  you  give  me  a  dollar  for  her?  " 

Charles  Browne  was  not  successful  as  a  news  reporter,  lacking 
enterprise  and  energy,  but  his  success  lay  in  writing  up,  in  a  bur- 
lesque manner,  well-known  public  affairs  like  prize-fights,  races, 
spiritual  meetings,  and  political  gatherings.  His  department 
became  wonderfully  humorous,  and  was  always  a  favorite  with 
readers  whether  there  was  any  news  in  it  or  not.  Sometimes  he 
would  have  a  whole  column  of  letters  from  young  ladies  in  reply  to 
a  fancied  matrimonial  advertisement,  and  then  he  would  have  a 
column  of  answers  to  general  correspondents  like  this : 

VERITAS — Many  make  the  same  error.  Mr.  Key,  who  wrote  the  "  Star  Spangled 
Banner,"  is  not  the  author  of  Hamlet,  a  tragedy.  He  wrote  the  banner  business,  and 
assisted  in  "  The  Female  Pirate,"  but  did  not  write  Hamlet.  Hamlet  was  written  by 
a  talented  but  unscrupulous  man  named  Macbeth,  afterwards  tried  and  executed  for 
"  murdering  sleep." 

YOTTNG  CLERGYMAN — Two  pints  of  rum,  two  quarts  of  hot  water,  tea-cup  of 
sugar,  and  a  lemon;  grate  in  nutmeg,  stir  thoroughly  and  drink  while  hot. 


22  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

It  was  during  his  engagement  on  the  Plaindealer  that  he  wrote, 
dating  from  Indiana,  his  first  communication — the  first  published 
letter  following  this  sketch,  signed  "  Artemus  Ward,'r  a  sobriquet 
purely  incidental,  but  borne  with  the  "u"  changed  to  an  "a"  by 
an  American  revolutionary  general.  It  was  here  that  Mr.  Browne 
first  became,  in  words,  the  possessor  of  a  moral  show,  "  consisting 
of  three  moral  bares,  a  kangaroo  (a  amoozing  little  rascal ;  'twould 
make  you  larf  yourself  to  death  to  see  the  little  kuss  jump  and 
squeal),  wax  figures  of  G.  "Washington,  &c.,  &c."  Hundreds  of 
newspapers  copied  this  letter,  and  Charles  Browne  awoke  one 
morning  to  find  himself  famous. 

In  the  Plaindealer  office,  his  companion,  George  Hoyt,  writes: 
"  His  desk  was  a  rickety  table  which  had  been  whittled  and  gashed 
until  it  looked  as  if  it  had  been  the  victim  of  lightning.  His  chair 
was  a  fit  companion  thereto — a  wabbling,  unsteady  affair,  some- 
times with  four  and  sometimes  with  three  legs.  But  Browne  saw 
neither  the  table,  nor  the  chair,  nor  any  person  who  might  be  near 
— nothing,  in  fact,  but  the  funny  pictures  which  were  tumbling  out 
of  his  brain.  When  writing,  his  gaunt  form  looked  ridiculous 
enough.  One  leg  hung  over  the  arm  of  his  chair  like  a  great  hook, 
while  he  would  write  away,  sometimes  laughing  to  himself,  and 
then  slapping  the  table  in  the  excess  of  his  mirth." 

"While  in  the  office  of  the  Plaindealer,  Mr.  Browne  first  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  becoming  a  lecturer.  In  attending  the  various 
minstrel  shows  and  circuses  which  came  to  the  city,  he  would  fre- 
quently hear  repeated  some  story  of  his  own  which  the  audience 
would  receive  with  hilarity.  His  best  witticisms  came  back  to  him 
from  the  lips  of  another,  who  made  a  living  by  quoting  a  stolen 
jest.  Then  the  thought  came  to  him  to  enter  the  lecture  field  him- 
self, and  become  the  utterer  of  his  own  witticisms,  the  mouthpiece 
of  his  own  jests. 

On  the  10th  of  November,  1860,  Charles  Browne,  whose  fame, 
traveling  in  his  letters  from  Boston  to  San  Francisco,  had  now 
become  national,  grasped  the  hands  of  his  hundreds  of  New  York 
admirers.  Cleveland  had  throned  him  the  monarch  of  mirth,  and 
a  thousand  hearts  paid  him  tributes  of  adulation  as  he  closed  his 
connection  with  the  Cleveland  press. 

Arriving  in  the  Empire  City,  Mr.  Browne  soon  opened  an  engage- 
ment with  Vanity  Fair,  a  humorous  paper  after  the  manner  of 


ARTEMUS  WARD.  23 

London  Punch,  and  ere  long  he  succeeded  Mr.  Charles  G.  Leland  as 
editor.  Mr.  Charles  Dawson  Shanly  says:  "  After  Artemus  Ward 
became  sole  editor,  a  position  which  he  held  for  a  brief  period,  many 
of  his  best  contributions  were  given  to  the  public ;  and,  whatever 
there  was  of  merit  in  the  columns  of  Vanity  Fair  from  the  time  he 
assumed  the  editorial  charge,  emanated  from  his  pen."  Mr.  Browne 
himself  wrote  to  a  friend  :  "  Comic  copy  is  what  they  wanted  for 
Vanity  Fair.  I  wrote  some  and  it  killed  it.  The  poor  paper  got 
to  be  a  conundrum,  and  so  I  gave  it  up." 

The  idea  of  entering  the  field  as  a  lecturer  now  seized  Mr.  Browne 
stronger  than  ever.  Tired  of  the  pen,  he  resolved  on  trying  the 
platform.  His  Bohemian  friends  agreed  that  his  fame  and  fortune 
would  be  made  before  intelligent  audiences.  He  resolved  to  try  it. 
What  should  be  the  subject  of  my  lecture?  How  shall  I  treat  the 
subject  ?  These  questions  caused  Mr.  Browne  grave  speculations. 
Among  other  schemes,  he  thought  of  a  string  of  jests  combined  with 
a  stream  of  satire,  the  whole  being  unconnected — a  burlesque  upon  a 
lecture.  The  subject — that  was  a  hard  question.  First  he  thought 
of  calling  it  "  My  Seven  Grandmothers,"  but  he  finally  adopted  the 
name  of  "  Babes  in  the  Woods,"  and  with  this  subject,  Charles 
Browne  was  introduced  to  a  metropolitan  audience,  on  the  evening 
of  December  23, 1861.  The  place  was  Clinton  Hall,  which  stood  on 
the  site  of  the  old  Astor  Place  Opera  House,  where,  years  ago, 
occurred  the  Macready  riot,  and  where  now  is  the  Mercantile 
Library.  Previous  to  this  introduction,  Mr.  Frank  Wood  accom- 
panied him  to  the  suburban  town  of  Norwich,  Connecticut,  where 
he  first  delivered  his  lecture  and  watched  the  result.  The  audience 
was  delighted,  and  Mr.  Browne  received  an  ovation.  Previous  to 
his  Clinton  Hall  appearance,  the  city  was  flooded  with  funny 
placards  reading : 


ARTEMTJS    WARD 

WILL 

SPEAK    A    PIECE. 


Owing  to  a  great  storm,  only  a  small  audience  braved  the  ele- 
ments, and  the  Clinton  Hall  lecture  was  not  a  financial  success. 
It  consisted  of  a  wandering  batch  of  comicalities,  touching  upon 
every  thing  except  "  The  Babes."  Indeed  it  was  better  described  by 


24  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFOEM  AND  PULPIT. 

the  lecturer  in  London,  when  he  said,  "One  of  the  features  of  my 
entertainment  is,  that  it  contains  so  many  things  that  don't  have 
any  thing  to  do  with  it." 

In  the  middle  of  his  lecture,  the  speaker  would  hesitate,  stop,  and 
say:  "  Owing  to  a  slight  indisposition,  we  will  now  have  an  inter- 
mission of  fifteen  minutes."  The  audience  looked  in  utter  dismay 
at  the  idea  of  staring  at  vacancy  fora  quarter  of  an  hour,  when,  rub- 
bing his  hands,  the  lecturer  would  continue  :  "  But,  ah — during  the 
intermission  I  will  go  on  with  my  lecture ! " 

Mr.  Browne's  first  volume,  entitled  "  Artemus  "Ward ;  His  Book," 
was  published  in  New  York,  May  17, 1862.  The  volume  was  every- 
where hailed  with  enthusiasm,  and  over  forty  thousand  copies  were 
sold.  Great  success  also  attended  the  sale  of  his  three  other  volumes 
published  in  '65,  '67  and  '69. 

Mr.  Browne's  next  lecture  was  entitled  "  Sixty  Minutes  in  Africa," 
and  was  delivered  in  Musical  Fund  Hall,  Philadelphia.  Behind 
him  hung  a  large  map  of  Africa,  "  which  region,"  said  Artemus, 
"abounds  in  various  natural  productions,  such  as  reptiles  and  flowers. 
It  produces  the  red  rose,  the  white  rose  and  the  neg-roes.  In  the 
middle  of  the  continent  is  what  is  called  a  '  howling  wilderness,' 
but,  for  my  part,  I  have  never  heard  it  howl,  nor  met  with  any  one 
who  has." 

After  Mr.  Browne  had  created  immense  enthusiasm  for  his  lect- 
ures and  books  in  the  Eastern  States,  which  filled  his  pockets  with 
plenty  of  money,  he  started,  October  3,  1863,  for  California. 
Previous  to  starting,  he  received  a  telegram  from  Thomas  Maguire, 
of  the  San  Francisco  Opera  House,  inquiring  "  what  he  would  take 
for  forty  nights  in  California."  Mr.  Browne  immediately  tele- 
graphed back : 

Brandy  and  water, 

A.  WARD. 

and,  though  Maguire  was  sorely  puzzled  at  the  contents  of  the  dis- 
patch, the  press  got  hold  of  it,  and  it  went  through  California  as  a 
capital  joke. 

Mr.  Browne  first  lectured  in  San  Francisco  on  "The  Babes  in 
the  "Wood,"  November  13,  3863,  at  Pratt's  Hall.  T.  Starr  King 
took  a  deep  interest  in  him,  occupying  the  rostrum,  and  his  general 
reception  in  San  Francisco  was  warm. 

Mr.  Browne  returned  overland  from  San  Francisco,  stopping  at 
Salt  Lake  City.  He  took  a  deep  interest  in  Brigham  Young  and  the 


ARTEMUS  WARD.  25 

i 

Mormons.  The  Prophet  attended  his  lecture.  When  the  writer 
lectured  in  the  Mormon  theater  twenty  years  afterward,  Brigham 
Young  was  present.  The  next  day  my  wife  and  I  were  entertained 
at  the  Lion  House,  the  home  of  the  Prophet,  when  he  and  Hiram 
Clausen  gave  me  many  reminiscences  of  the  humorist's  visit. 

Mr.  Browne  wrote  many  sketches  for  the  newspaper  about  the 
Mormons  and  the  rude  scenes  he  encountered  on  the  overland  stage, 
which  afterward  appeared  in  his  Mormon  lecture.  Delving  through 
a  trunk  full  of  Artemus  Ward's  papers  and  MSS.  to-day,  I  found  this 
sketch.  I  give  it  in  his  own  handwriting.  An}^  journalist  will  see, 
by  his  correct  punctuation,  that  he  was  a  man  of  culture.  This  lith- 
ographed sketch  shows  his  character.  It  proves  that  he  was  once  a 
type-setter.  It  is  the  best  index  to  the  culture  and  technical  knowl- 
edge of  the  humorist  that  could  be  given  : 

THE   MISSOURI  AN    IN    UTAH. 


/l***-*^* 


26  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


f 

0  _  9 


*^ 


ARTEMUS  WARD.  27 

Returning  overland,  through  Salt  Lake  to  the  States,  in  the  fall 
of  1864,  Mr.  Browne  lectured  again  in  New  York,  this  time  on  the 
"  Mormons,"  to  immense  audiences,  and  in  the  spring  of  1865  he 
commenced  his  tour  through  the  country,  everywhere  drawing 
enthusiastic  audiences  both  North  and  South. 

It  was  while  on  this  tour  that  the  writer  of  this  sketch  again 
spent  some  time  with  him.  We  met  at  Memphis  and  traveled  down 
the  Mississippi  together.  At  Lake  Providence  the  "Indiana" 
rounded  up  to  our  landing,  and  Mr.  Browne  accompanied  the  writer 
to  his  plantation,  where  he  spent  several  days,  mingling  in  seeming 
infinite  delight  with  the  negroes.  For  them  he  showed  great  fond- 
ness, and  they  used  to  stand  around  him  in  crowds,  listening  to  his 
seemingly  serious  advice.  We  could  not  prevail  upon  him  to  hunt 
or  to  join  in  any  of  the  equestrian  amusements  with  the  neighbor- 
ing planters,  but  a  quiet  fascination  drew  him  to  the  negroes. 
Strolling  through  the  "quarters,"  his  grave  words,  too  deep  with 
humor  for  darky  comprehension,  gained  their  entire  confidence. 
One  day  he  called  up  Uncle  Jeff.,  an  Uncle-Tom-like  patriarch,  and 
commenced  in  his  usual  vein:  "Now,  Uncle  Jefferson,"  he  said, 
"  why  do  you  thus  pursue  the  habits  of  industry  ?  This  course  of 
life  is  wrong — all  wrong — all  a  base  habit,  Uncle  Jefferson.  Now 
try  and  break  it  off.  Look  at  me, — look  at  Mr.  Landon,  the  chiv- 
alric  young  Southern  plantist  from  New  York,  he  toils  not,  neither 
does  he  spin ;  he  pursues  a  career  of  contented  idleness.  If  you 
only  thought  so,  Jefferson,  you  could  live  for  months  without  per- 
forming any  kind  of  labor,  and  at  the  expiration  of  that  time  feel 
fresh  and  vigorous  enough  to  commence  it  again.  Idleness  refreshes 
the  physical  organization — it  is  a  sweet  boon !  Strike  at  the  roots 
of  the  destroying  habit  to-day,  Jefferson.  It  tires  you  out ;  resolve 
to  be  idle  ;  no  one  should  labor ;  he  should  hire  others  to  do  it  for 
him  ;"  and  then  he  would  fix  his  mournful  eyes  on  Jeff,  and  hand 
him  a  dollar,  while  the  eyes  of  the  wonder-struck  darky  would 
gaze  in  mute  admiration  upon  the  good  and  wise  originator  of  the 
only  theory  which  the  darky  mind  could  appreciate.  As  Jeff, 
went  away  to  tell  the  wonderful  story  to  his  companions,  and  backed 
it  with  the  dollar  as  material  proof,  Artemus  would  cover  his  eyes, 
and  bend  forward  on  his  elbows  in  a  chuckling  laugh. 

"Among  the  Mormons  "  was  delivered  through  the  States,  every- 
where drawing:  immense  crowds.  His  manner  of  delivering  his  dis- 


28  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

course  was  grotesque  and  comical  beyond  description.  His  quaint 
and  sad  style  contributed  more  than  any  thing  else  to  render  his 
entertainment  exquisitely  funny.  The  programme  was  exceedingly 
droll,  and  the  tickets  of  admission  presented  the  most  ludicrous  of 
ideas.  The  writer  presents  a  fac-simile  of  an  admission  ticket  which 
was  presented  to  him  in  Natchez  by  Mr.  Browne : 


ADMIT  THE  JDEARER 

AND    ONE    WIFE. 


VV 


A.     VVARD. 


In  the  spring  of  1866,  Charles  Browne  first  timidly  thought  of 
going  to  Europe.  Turning  to  Mr.  Kingston  one  day,  he  asked : 
"  What  sort  of  a  man  is  Albert  Smith  ?  Do  you  think  the  Mormons 
would  be  as  good  a  subject  to  the  Londoners  as  Mont  Blanc  was?" 
Then  he  said :  "  I  should  like  to  go  to  London  and  give  my  lecture 
in  the  same  place.  Can't  it  be  done?" 

Mr.  Browne  sailed  for  England  soon  after,  taking  with  him  his 
Panorama.  The  success  that  awaited  him  could  scarcely  have  been 
anticipated  by  his  most  intimate  friends.  Scholars,  wits,  poets  and 
novelists  came  to  him  with  extended  hands,  and  his  stay  in  Lon- 
don was  one  ovation  to  the  genius  of  American  wit.  Charles  Keade, 
the  novelist,  was  his  warm  friend  and  enthusiastic  admirer;  and 
Mr.  Andrew  Haliday  introduced  him  to  the  "  Literary  Club,"  where 
he  became  a  great  favorite.  Maifc  Lemon  came  to  him  and  asked 
him  to  become  a  contributor  to  Punch,  which  he  did.  His  Punch 
letters  were  more  remarked  in  literary  circles  than  any  other  cur- 
rent matter.  There  was  hardly  a  club-meeting  or  a  dinner  at  which 
they  were  not  discussed.  "There  was  something  so  grotesque  in 
the  idea,"  said  a  correspondent,  "  of  this  ruthless  Yankee  poking 
among  the  revered  antiquities  of  Britain,  that  the  beef-eating  British 
themselves  could  not  restrain  their  laughter."  The  story  of  his 


ARTEMUS  WARD.  29 

Uncle  "William  who  "followed  commercial  pursuits,  glorious  com- 
merce— and  sold  soap ! "  and  his  letters  on  the  Tower  and 
"Chowser,"  were  palpable  hits,  and  it  was  admitted  that  P^mch 
had  contained  nothing  better  since  the  days  of  "  Yellowplush." 
This  opinion  was  shared  by  the  Times,  the  literary  reviews,  and  the 
gayest  leaders  of  society.  The  publishers  of  Punch  posted  up  his 
name  in  large  letters  over  their  shop  in  Fleet  street,  and  Artemus 
delighted  to  point  it  out  to  his  friends.  About  this  time  Mr. 
Browne  wrote  to  his  friend,  Jack  Rider,  of  Cleveland  : 

This  is  the  proudest  moment  of  my  life.  To  have  been  as  well  appreciated  here 
as  at  home,  to  have  written  for  the  oldest  comic  journal  in  the  English  language, 
received  mention  with  Hood,  witli  Jerrold  and  Hook,  and  to  have  my  picture  and  my 
pseudonym  as  common  in  London  as  New  York,  is  enough  for 

Yours  truly, 

A.  WARD. 

England  was  now  thoroughly  aroused  to  the  merits  of  Artemus 
Ward,  and  he  set  out  to  deliver  his  first  lecture  in  Egyptian  Hall. 
His  subject  was  "  The  Mormons."  It  was  the  great  lecture  of  his 
life,  and  was  made  up  from  all  of  his  lectures.  It  has  in  it  snatches 
from  "  Babes  in  the  Wood"  and  "  Sixty  Minutes  in  Africa."  This 
lecture  appears  in  this  book  precisely  as  delivered,  and  prepared  by 
myself,  after  hearing  him  deliver  it  many  times.  His  first  London 
lecture  occurred  Tuesday  evening,  November  13,  1886.  Within  a 
week  immense  crowds  were  turned  away  every  night,  and  at  every 
lecture  his  fame  increased,  until  sickness  brought  his  brilliant  suc- 
cess to  an  end,  and  a  nation  mourned  his  retirement. 

On  the  evening  of  Friday,  the  seventh  week  of  his  engagement 
at  Egyptian  Hall,  Artemus  became  seriously  ill,  an  apology  was 
made  to  a  disappointed  audience,  and  from  that  time  the  light  of 
one  of  the  greatest  wits  of  the  centuries  commenced  fading  into  dark- 
ness. The  press  mourned  his  retirement,  and  a  funeral  pall  fell 
over  London.  The  laughing,  applauding  crowds  were  soon  to  see 
Iris  consumptive  form  moving  toward  its  narrow  resting  place  in 
the  cemetery  at  Kensal  Green. 

By  medical  advice,  Charles  Browne  went  for  a  short  time  to  the 
Island  of  Jersey — but  the  breezes  of  Jersey  were  powerless.  He 
wrote  to  London  to  his  nearest  and  dearest  friends — the  members  of 
a  literary  club  of  which  he  was  a  member — to  complain  that  his 
"  loneliness  weighed  on  him."  He  was  brought  back,  but  could  not 
sustain  the  journey  farther  than  Southampton.  There  the  members 


30  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

of  the  club  traveled  from  London  to  see  him — two  at  a  time — that 
he  might  be  less  lonely. 

His  remains  were  followed  to  the  grave  from  the  rooms  of  his 
friend,  Arthur  Sketchley,  by  a  large  number  of  friends  and  admir- 
ers, the  literati  and  press  of  London  paying  the  last  tribute  of 
'respect  to  their  dead  brother.  The  funeral  services  were  conducted 
by  the  Rev.  M.  D.  Conway,  formerly  of  Cincinnati,  and  the  coffin 
was  temporarily  placed  in  a  vault,  from  which  it  was  removed  by  his 
American  friends,  and  his  body  now  sleeps  by  the  side  of  his  father, 
Levi  Browne,  in  the  quiet  cemetery  at  Waterford,  Maine.  Upon, 
the  coffin  is  the  simple  inscription : 


"CHARLES   F.  BROWNE, 

AGED  S3  YEARS, 

BETTER  KNOWN  TO  THE  WORLD  AS  'ARTEMUS  WARD; 


His  English  executors  were  T.  "W.  Robertson,  the  playwright, 
and  his  friend  and  companion,  E.  P.  Kingston.  His  literary  executors 
were  Horace  Greeley  and  Richard  H.  Stoddard.  The  humorist 
left  a  will  which  is  now  in  the  vault  of  the  Oxford  County  Probate 
Court  at  Paris  Hill,  Maine.  The  writer  paid  a  special  trip  to  Paris 
Hill  to  see  this  will.  It  is  inscribed  on  two  sheets  of  heavy  parchment 
about  two  feet  square  in  the  most  elaborate  style  of  the  scrivener's 
art.  The  will  was  made  in  England,  and  was  sent  over  in  a  tin  box, 
about  the  shape  of  a  cigar  box,  on  which  is  stamped  the  British 
coat-of-arms  and  the  letters,  "  V.  R." 

The  will  begins  thus  :  "  This  is  the  will  of  me,  Charles  Farrar 
Browne  Ward,  known  as 'Artemus  Ward.' "  The  testator  directs 
that  his  body  shall  be  buried  in  Waterford  Tipper  Tillage,  but  in  a 
codicil  changes  the  place  of  his  entombment  to  Waterford  Lower 
Village.  He  bequeaths  his  library  to  the  best  scholar  in  the  schools 
at  Waterford  Tipper  Tillage,  and  his  manuscripts  to  R.  H.  Stoddard 
and  Charles  Dawson  Stanley.  After  making  several  bequests  to 
his  mother  and  relatives,  he  gives  the  balance  of  his  property  to 
found  "  an  asylum  for  worn-out  printers."  Horace  Greeley  to  be 
the  sole  trustee,  and  his  receipt  to  be  the  only  security  to  be 
demanded  of  him. 


ARTEMUS  WARD.  31 

An  Oxford  county  man,  referring  to  the  will,  said: 

"•  Either  Artemus  intended  that  his  will  should  be  a  post-mortem 
joke  or  he  was  robbed  ;  for  upon  his  death  a  very  small  property 
was  found — hardly  enough  to  pay  the  minor  bequests,  let  alone 
founding  a  printers'  hospital." 

R.  II.  Stoddard  and  Charles  Dawson  Stanley  never  asked  for  the 
humorist's  manuscripts.  George  W.  Carleton,  his  publisher,  had 
them,  and  finally  turned  them  over  to  the  writer,  who  has  them  now 
in  his  possession.  T.  W.  Robertson,  the  playwright,  and  his  friend 
and  companion,  E.  P.  Hingston,  were  his  English  executors.  It 
seems  sad,  that,  after  such  careful  provisions  on  the  part  of  the 
humorist,  on  the  writer  of  this  memoir  should  devolve  the  loving 
work  of  transmitting  many  of  the  humorists'  best  creations  to 
posterity. 

Besides  other  bequests,  Artemus  gave  a  large  sum  of  money  to 
his  little  valet,  a  bright  little  fellow ;  though  subsequent  denouments 
revealed  the  fact  that  he  left  only  a  six-thousand-dollar  house  in 
Yonkers.  There  is  still  some  mystery  about  his  finances,  which 
may  one  day  be  revealed.  It  is  known  that  he  withdrew  $10,000 
from  the  Pacific  Bank  to  deposit  it  with  a  friend  before  going  to 
England  ;  besides  this,  his  London  Punch  letters  paid  a  handsome 
profit.  Among  his  personal  friends  were  George  Hoyt,  the  late 
Daniel  Setchell,  Charles  W.  Coe,  and  Mr.  Mullen,  the  artist,  all  of 
whom  he  used  to  style  "  my  friends  all  the  year  round." 

Personally,  Charles  Farrar  Browne  was  one  of  the  kindest  and 
most  affectionate  of  men,  and  history  does  not  name  a  man  who  was 
so  universally  beloved  by  all  who  knew  him.  It  was  remarked,  and 
truly,  that  the  death  of  no  literary  character  since  "Washington 
Irving  caused  such  general  and  widespread  regret. 

In  stature  he  was  tall  and  slender.  His  nose  was  prominent — 
outlined  like  that  of  Sir  Charles  Napier,  or  Mr.  Seward  ;  his  eyes 
brilliant,  small,  and  close  together;  his  mouth  large,  teeth  white 
and  pearly;  fingers  long  and  slender;  hair  soft,  straight  and  blonde  ; 
complexion  florid  ;  mustache  large,  and  his  voice  soft  and  clear.  In 
bearing,  he  moved  like  a  natural  born  gentleman.  In  his  lectures 
he  never  smiled — not  even  while  he  was  giving  utterance  to  the 
most  delicious  absurdities ;  but  all  the  while  the  jokes  fell  from  his 
lips  as  if  he  were  unconscious  of  their  meaning.  "While  writing  his 
lectures,  he  would  laugh  and  chuckle  to  himself  continually. 


32  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

There  was  one  peculiarity  about  Charles  Browne — he  never  made 
an  enemy.  Other  wits  in  other  times  have  been  famous,  but  a 
satirical  thrust  now  and  then  has  killed  a  friend.  Diogenes  was  the 
wit  of  Greece,  but  when,  after  holding  up  an  old  dried  fish  to  draw 
away  the  eyes  of  Anaximenes'  audience,  he  exclaimed  "  See  how  an 
old  fish  is  more  interesting  than  Anaximenes,"  he  said  a  funny 
thing,  but  he  stabbed  a  friend.  "When  Charles  Lamb,  in  answer  to 
the  doting  mother's  question  as  to  how  he  liked  babies,  replied, 
"  b-b-boiled,  madam,  boiled  !"  that  mother  loved  him  no  more ;  and 
when  John  Randolph  said  "  thank  you  ! "  to  his  constituent  who 
kindly  remarked  that  he  had  the  pleasure  of  "  passing  "  his  house, 
it  was  wit  at  the  expense  of  friendship.  The  whole  English  school 
of  wits — with  Douglas  Jerrold,  Hood,  Sheridan,  and  Sidney  Smith, 
indulged  in  repartee.  They  were  parasitic  wits.  And  so  with  the 
Irish,  except  that  an  Irishman  is  generally  so  ridiculously  absurd  in 
his  replies  as  to  excite  only  ridicule.  "  Artemus  Ward  "  made  you 
laugh  and  love  him  too. 

The  wit  of  "  Artemus  Ward  "  and  "  Josh  Billings "  is  distinc- 
tively American.  Lord  Kames,  in  his  "  Elements  of  Criticism," 
makes  no  mention  of  this  species  of  wit,  a  lack  which  the  future 
rhetorician  should  look  to.  We  look  in  vain  for  it  in  the  English 
language  of  past  ages,  and  in  other  languages  of  modern  time.  It 
is  the  genus  American.  When  Artemus  says,  in  that  serious  man- 
ner, looking  admiringly  at  his  atrocious  pictures,  "  I  love  pictures — 
and  I  have  many  of  them — beautiful  photographs — of  myself,"  you 
smile,  and  when  he  continues,  "  These  pictures  were  painted  by  the 
old  masters  :  they  painted  these  pictures  and  then  they — they 
expired,"  you  hardly  know  what  it  is  that  makes  you  laugh  out- 
right, and  when  Josh  Billings  says  in  his  Proverbs,  wiser  than  Sol- 
omon's, "  You'd  better  not  know  so  much,  than  know  so  many 
things  that  ain't  so,"  the  same  vein  is  struck,  but  the  text-books  fail 
to  explain  scientifically  the  cause  of  our  mirth. 

The  wit  of  Charles  Browne  is  of  the  most  exalted  kind.  It  is 
only  scholars  and  those  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  subtlety  of 
our  language  who  fully  appreciate  it.  His  wit  is  generally  about 
historical  personages  like  Cromwell,  Garrick  or  Shakespeare,  or  a 
burlesque  on  different  styles  of  writing,  like  his  French  novel,  when 
"  hifalutin "  phrases  of  tragedy  come  from  the  clodhopper  who — 
"  sells  soap  and  thrice — refuses  a  ducal  coronet." 


ARTEMUS   WARD.  33 

Mr.  Browne  mingled  the  eccentric  even  in  his  business  letters. 
Once  he  wrote  to  his  publisher,  Mr.  G.  W.  Carleton,  who  had  made 
some  alterations  in  his  MSS.:  "  The  next  book  I  write  I'm  going  to 
get  you  to  write."  Again  he  wrote  in  1863  : 

DEAR  CARL: — You  and  I  will  get  out  a  book  next  spring,  which  will  knock  spots- 
out  of  all  comic  books  in  ancient  or  modern  history.  And  the  fact  that  you  are  going 
to  take  hold  of  it  convinces  me  that  you  have  one  of  the  most  massive  intellects  of 
this  or  any  other  epoch.  Yours,  my  pretty  gazelle, 

A.  WARD. 

When  Charles  F.  Browne  died  he  did  not  belong  to  America, 
for,  as  with  Irving  and  Dickens,  the  English  language  claimed  him. 
Greece  alone  did  not  suffer  when  the  current  of  Diogenes'  wit  flowed 
on  to  death.  Spain  alone  did  not  mourn  when  Cervantes,  dying, 
left  Don  Quixote  the  "  knight  of  la  Mancha."  When  Charles  Lamb 
ceased  to  tune  the  great  heart  of  humanity  to  joy  and  gladness,  his 
funeral  was  in  every  English  and  American  household,  and  when 
Charles  Browne  took  up  his  silent  resting  place  in  the  somber 
shades  of  Kensal  Green,  jesting  ceased,  and  one  great  Anglo-Amer- 
ican heart, 

Like  a  muffled  drum  went  beating 
Funeral  marches  to  his  grave. 


AETEMUS    WAED'S    PANOEAMA. 

(ILLUSTRATED  AS  DELIVERED  AT  EGYPTIAN  HALL,  LOXDOX.) 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 

BY  MELVILLE  D.  LAXDOX  ("ELI  FERKIXS  "  ). 

The  fame  of  Artemus  Ward  culminated  in  his  last  lectures  at  Egyptian  Hail, 
Piccadilly,  the  final  one  breaking  off  abruptly  on  the  evening  of  the  23d  of  January, 
1867.  That  night  the  great  humorist  bade  farewell  to  the  public,  and  retired  from 
the  stage  to  die !  His  Mormon  lectures  were  immensely  successful  in  England.  His 
fame  became  the  talk  of  journalists,  savants  and  statesmen.  Every  one  seemed  to  be 
affected  differently,  but  every  one  felt  and  acknowledged  his  power!  "The  Honora- 
ble Robert  Lowe,"  says  Mr.  E.  P.  Kingston,  Artemus  Ward's  bosom  friend,  "attended 
the  Mormon  lecture  one  evening,  and  laughed  as  hilariously  as  any  one  in  the  room. 
The  next  evening  Mr.  John  Bright  happened  to  be  present.  With  the  exception  of 
one  or  two  occasional  smiles,  he  listened  with  grave  attention." 

The  London  Standard,  in  describing  his  first  lecture  in  London,  aptly  said, 
"Artemus  dropped  his  jokes  faster  than  the  meteors  of  last  night  succeeded  each 
other  in  the  sky.  And  there  was  this  resemblance  between  the  flashes  of  his  humor 
and  the  flights  of  the  meteors,  that  in  each  case  one  looked  for  jokes  or  meteors,  but 


34  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

they  always  came  just  in  the  place  that  one  least  expected  to  find  them.  Half  the 
enjoyment  of  the  evening  lay,  to  some  of  those  present,  in  listening  to  the  hearty 
cachiimation  of  the  people,  who  only  found  out  the  jokes  some  two  or  three  minutes 
after  they  were  made,  and  who  laughed  apparently  at  some  grave  statements  of  fact. 
Reduced  to  paper,  the  showman's  jokes  are  certainly  not  brilliant;  almost  their  \vhole 
effect  lies  in  their  seeming  impromptu  character.  They  are  carefully  led  up  to,  of 
course;  but  they  are  uttered  as  if  they  are  mere  afterthoughts  of  which  the  speaker  is 
hardly  sure." 

His  humor  was  so  entirely  fresh  and  unconventional,  that  it  took  his  hearers  by 
surprise,  and  charmed  them.  His  failing  health  compelled  him  to  abandon  the  lect- 
ure after  about  eight  or  ten  weeks.  Indeed,  during  that  brief  period,  he  was  once  or 
twice  compelled  to  dismiss  his  audience.  Frequently  he  sank  into  a  chair  and  nearly 
fainted  from  the  exertion  of  dressing.  He  exhibited  the  greatest  anxiety  to  be  at  his 
post  at  the  appointed  time,  and  scrupulously  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost  to  entertain 
his  auditors.  It  was  not  because  he  was  sick  that  the  public  was  to  be  disappointed, 
or  that  their  enjoyment  was  to  be  diminished.  During  the  last  few  weeks  of  his 
lecture-giving,  he  steadily  abstained  from  accepting  any  of  the  numerous  invitations 
he  received.  Had  he  lived  through  the  following  London  fashionable  season,  there  is 
little  doubt  that  the  room  at  Egyptian  Hall  would  have  been  thronged  nightly.  The 
English  aristocracy  have  a  fine,  delicate  sense  of  humor,  and  the  success,  artistic 
and  pecuniary,  of  "Artemus  Ward,"  would  have  rivaled  that  of  the  famous  "Lord 
Dundreary."  There  were  many  stupid  people  who  did  not  understand  the  "fun" 
of  Artemus  Ward's  books.  There  were  many  stupid  people  who  did  not  understand 
the  fun  of  Artemus  Ward's  lecture  on  the  Mormons.  Highly  respectable  people — the 
pride  of  their  parish — when  they  heard  of  a  lecture  "upon  the  Mormons,"  expected  to 
see  a  solemn  person,  full  of  old  saws  and  new  statistics,  who  would  denounce  the  sin  of 
polygamy — and  rave  without  limit  against  Mormons.  These  uncomfortable  Chris- 
tians do  not  like  humor.  They  dread  it  as  a  certain  personage  is  said  to  dread  holy 
water,  and  for  the  same  reason  that  thieves  fear  policemen  —  it  finds  them  out.  When 
these  good  idiots  heard  Artemus  offer,  if  they  did  not  like  the  lecture  in  Piccadilly,  to 
give  them  free  tickets  for  the  same  lecture  in  California,  when  he  next  visited  that 
country,  they  turned  to  each  other  indignantly,  and  said,  "What  use  are  tickets  for 
California  to  us?  We  are  not  going  to  California.  No!  we  are  too  good,  too 
respectable  to  go  so  far  from  home.  The  man  is  a  fool !  "  One  of  these  vestrymen 
complained  to  the  doorkeeper,  and  denounced  the  lecturer  as  an  imposter — "and," 
said  the  wealthy  parishioner,  "as  for  the  panorama,  it  is  the  worse  painted  thing  I 
ever  saw." 

During  the  lecture,  Artemus  was  always  as  solemn  as  the  grave.  Sometimes  he 
would  seem  to  forget  his  audience,  and  stand  for  several  seconds  gazing  intently  at 
his  panorama.  Then  he  would  start  up  and  remark  apologetically,  ' '  I  am  very  fond  , 
of  looking  at  my  pictures."  His  dress  was  always  the  same — evening  toilet.  His 
manners  were  polished  and  his  voice  gentle  and  hesitating.  Many  who  had  read  of 
the  man  who  spelled  joke  with  a  "  g"  looked  for  a  smart  old  man  with  a  shrewd 
cock  eye,  dressed  in  vulgar  velvet  and  gold,  and  they  were  hardly  prepared  to  see 
the  accomplished  gentleman  with  slim  physique  and  delicate  white  hands. 

The  letters  of  Artemus  Ward  in  Punch,  from  the  tomb  of  Shakespeare  and  the 
London  Tower,  had  made  him  famous  in  England,  and  in  his  audience  were  the 
nobility  of  the  realm.  His  first  lecture  in  London  was  delivered  at  Egyptian  Hall, 


ARTEMUS   WARD. 


35 


Tuesday,  November  13,  1866.  The  room  used  was  that  which  had  been  occupied  by 
Mr.  Arthur  Sketchley,  adjoining  the  one  in  which  Mr.  Arthur  Smith  formerly  made 
his  appearences. 

Punctually  at  eight  o'clock  he  would  step,  hesitatingly,  before  the  audience,  and, 
rubbing  his  hands  bashfully,  commence  the  lecture. 


LIFE  SKETCH  OF  WARD  WHILE  LECTURING. 

THE  LECTURE. 

You  are  entirely  welcome,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  to  my  little  picture- 
shop. 

I  couldn't  give  you  a  very  clear  idea  of  the  Mormons — -xand  Utah — 
and  the  plains  —  and  the  Eocky  Mountains  —  without  opening  a  pic- 
ture-shop   and  therefore  I  open  one. 

I  don't  expect  to  do  great  things  here  —  but  I  have  thought  that  if  I 
could  make  money  enough  to  buy  me  a  passage  to  New  Zealand  I  should 
feel  that  I  had  not  lived  in  vain. 

3 


36  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

I  don't  want  to  live  in  vain.  I'd  rather  live  in  Mar- 
gate—  or  here.  But  I  wish  when  the  Egyptians  built  this  hall  they 
had  given  it  a  little  more  ventilation. 

If  you  should  be  dissatisfied  with  any  thing  here  to-night  —  I  will 
admit  you  all  free  in  New  Zealand  —  if  you  will  come  to  me  there  for  the- 
orders.  Any  respectable  cannibal  will  tell  you  where  I 
1  i  ve.  This  shows  that  I  have  a  forgiving  spirit. 

I  really  don't  care  for  money.  I  only  travel  round  to  see  the  world 
and  to  exhibit  my  clothes.  These  clothes  I  have  on  were  a 
great  success  in  America. 

How  often  do  large  fortunes  ruin  young  men!  I  should  like  to- 
be  ruined,  but  I  can  get  011  very  well  as  I  am. 

I  am  not  an  artist.  I  don't  paint  myself though  perhaps  if  I  were 

a  middle-aged  single  lady  I  should yet  I  have  a  passion  for  pictures. 

I  have  had  a  great  many  pictures  —  photographs  —  taken  of  myself. 
Some  of  them  are  very  pretty  —  rather  sweet  to  look  at  for  a, 
short  time  —  and  as  I  said  before,  I  like  them.  I've  always  loved 
pictures. 

I  could  draw  on  wood  at  a  very  tender  age.  When  a  mere  child  I 
once  drew  a  small  cart-load  of  raw  turnips  over  a 

wooden  bridge. The  people  of  the  village  noticed  me.    I  drew 

their  attention.  They  said  I  had  a  future  before  me.  Up  to  that- 
time  I  had  an  idea  it  was  behind  me. 

Time  passed  on.  It  always  does,  by  the  way.  You  may  possi- 
bly have  noticed  that  Time  passes  on.  It  is  a  kind  of  way 
Time  has. 

I  became  a  man.  I  haven't  distinguished  myself  at  all  as  an  artist — 
but  I  have  always  been  more  or  less  mixed  up  with  art.  I  have  an 

uncle  who  takes  photographs  —  and  I  have  a  servant  who 

takes  any  thing  he  can  get  his  hands  on. 

When  I  was  in  Rome Rome  in  New  York  State  I  mean a 

distinguished  sculpist  wanted  to  sculp  me.  But  I  said  "No."  I  saw 
through  the  designing  man.  My  model  once  in  his  hands — he  would 

have  flooded  the  market  with  my  busts and  I  couldn't  stand  it  to  see- 

every  body  going  round  with  a  bust  of  me.  Every  body  would  want  one 
of  course  —  and  wherever  I  should  go  I  should  meet  the  educated  classes, 
with  my  bust,  taking  it  home  to  their  families.  This  would  be 

more   than  my  modesty  could    stand and    I    should 

have  to  return  to  America where  my  creditors  are. 

I  like  art.     I  admire  dramatic  art  —  although  I  failed  as  an  actor. 

It  was  in  my  schoolboy  days  that  I  failed  as  an  actor. The  play 

was  "the  Ruins  of  Pompeii." 1  played  the  ruins.     It  was  not 


ARTEMUS   WARD.  37 

a  very  successful  performance  —  but  it  was  better  than  the  ' '  Burning 
Mountain."  lie  was  not  good.  He  was  a  bad  Vesuvius. 

The  remembrance  often  makes  me  ask —  "  Where  are  the  boys  of  my 
youth  ?"  I  assure  you  this  is  not  a  conundrum.  Some  are  amongst  you 
here some  in  America some  are  in  jail. 

Hence  arises  a  most  touching  question —  "Where  are  the  girls  of  my 
youth  ? "  Some  are  married some  would  like  to  be. 

Oh  my  Maria !  Alas !  she  married  another.  They  frequently  do. 
I  hope  she  is  happy  —  because  I  am.*  Some  people  are  not  happy.  I 
have  noticed  that. 

A  gentleman  friend  of  mine  came  to  me  one  day  with  tears  in  his 
eyes.  I  said,  "  Why  these  weeps?"  He  said  he  had  a  mortgage  on  his 
farm — and  wanted  to  borrow  £200.  I  lent  him  the  money — and  he  went 
away.  Some  time  after  he  returned  with  more  tears.  He  said  he  must 
leave  me  forever.  I  ventured  to  remind  him  of  the  £200  he  borrowed. 
He  was  much  cut  up.  I  thought  I  would  not  be  hard  upon  him — so  told 
him  I  would  throw  off  one  hundred  pounds.  He  brightened — shook  my 
hand  —  and  said —  "  Old  friend —  I  won't  allow  you  to  outdo  me  in  liber- 
ality  I'll  throw  off  the  other  hundred." 

As  a  manager  I  was  always  rather  more  successful  than  as  an  actor. 

Some  years  ago  I  engaged  a  celebrated  Living  American  Skeleton  for 
a  tour  through  Australia.  He  was  the  thinnest  man  I  ever  saw.  He 

was  a  splendid  skeleton.  He  didn't  weigh  any  thing  scarcely and  I 

said  to  myself  —  the  people  of  Australia  will  flock  to  see  this  tremendous 
curiosity.  It  is  a  long  voyage  —  as  you  know  —  from  New  York  to  Mel- 
bourne —  and  to  my  utter  surprise  the  skeleton  had  no  sooner  got  out  to 
sea  than  he  commenced  eating  in  the  most  horrible  manner.  He  had 

never  been  on  the  ocean  before  —  and  he  said  it  agreed  with  him 1 

thought  so  ! 1  never  saw  a  man  eat  so  much  in  my  life.  Beef  — 

mutton  —  pork he  swallowed  them  all  like  a  shark and  between 

meals  he  was  often  discovered  behind  barrels  eating  hard-boiled  eggs. 
The  result  was  that,  when  we  reached  Melbourne,  this  infamous  skeleton 
weighed  64  pounds  more  than  I  did! 

I  thought  I  was  ruined but  I  wasn't.  I  took  him  on  to  Califor- 
nia  another  very  long  sea  voyage and  when  I  got  him  to  San 

Francisco  lexhibited  him  as  a  fat  man. 

*  "  Because  I  am ! "  —  (Spoken  with  a  sigh.)  It  was  a  joke  which  always  told.  Artemus 
never  failed  to  use  it  in  his  "  Babes  in  the  Wood  "  lecture,  and  the  "  Sixty  Minutes  in  Africa," 
as  well  as  in  the  Mormon  story. 


38  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

This  story  hasn't  any  thing  to  do  with  my  entertainment,  I  know 
but  one  of  the  principal  features  of   my  entertainment  is  that  it 


contains  so  many  things  that  don't  have  any  thing  to  do  with  it. 

My  orchestra  is  small but  I  am  sure  it  is  very  good  —  so  far  as  it 

goes.  I  give  my  pianist  ten  pounds  a  night  —  and  his 
washing. 

I  like  music.  I  can't  sing.  As  a  singest  I  am  not  a  success.  I  am 
saddest  when  I  sing.  So  are  those  who  hear  me.  They  are  sadder 
even  than  I  am. 

The  other  night  some  silver-voiced  young  men  came  under  my  window 

and  sang  —  "  Come  where  my  love  lies  dreaming." 1  didn't  go.     I 

didn't  think  it  would  be  correct. 

I  found  music  very  soothing  when  I  lay  ill  with  fever  in  Utah and 

I  was  Very  ill I  was  fearfully  wasted.     My  face  was  hewn  down  to 

nothing — and  my  nose  was  so  sharp  I  didn't  dare  to  stick  it  into  other 
people's  business — for  fear  it  would  stay  there  —  and  I  should 

never  get  it  again.     And  on  those  dismal  days  a  Mormon  lady she 

was  married  —  tho'  not  so  much  so  as  her  husband  —  he  had  fif- 
teen other  wives she  used  to  sing  a  ballad  commencing  "  Sweet  bird 

—  do  not  fly  away!" and  I  told  her  I  wouldn't.     She  played  the 

accordion  divinely  —  accordingly  I  praised  her. 

I  met  a  man  in  Oregon  who  hadn't  any  teeth  —  not  a  tooth  iu  hie; head 

yet  that   man    could   play   on  the    bass    drum  better 

than  any  man  I  ever  met.  He  kept  a  hotel.  They  have  queer 
hotels  in  Oregon.  I  remember  one  where  they  gave  me  a  bag  of  oats  for 

a  pillow 1  had  night  mares  of  course.      In  the  morning  the 

landlord  said  —  How  do  you  feel  —  old  hoss  —  hay? 1  told  him  I  felt 

my  oats. 

Permit  me  now  to  quietly  state  that  altho'  I  am  here  with  my  cap  and 
bells,  I  am  also  here  with  some  serious  descriptions  of  the  Mormons  — 

their  manners  —  their  customs and  while  the  pictures  I  shall  present 

to  your  notice  are  by  no  means  works  of  art  —  they  are  painted  from  pho- 
tographs actually  taken  on  the  spot — and  I  am  sure  I  need  not  inform  any 
person  present  who  was  ever  in  the  Territory  of  Utah  that  they  are  as 
faithful  as  they  could  possibly  be. 

I  went  to  Great  Salt  Lake  City  by  way  of  California, 
to  California  on  the  steamer  "  Ariel." 


ARTEMUS   WARD. 


39 


Oblige  me  by  calmly  gazing  on  the  steamer  ';  Ariel  " and 

when  you  go  to  California  be  sure  and  go  on  some 
other  steamer because  the  ' '  Ariel "  isn't  a  very  good  one. 

When  I  reached  the  "Ariel " —  at  pier  No.  4  —  New  York  —  I  found 
the  passengers  in  a  state  of  great  confusion  about  their  things  — which 


STEAMER  ARIEL. 

were  being  thrown  around  by  the  ship's  porters  in  a  manner  at  once 
damaging  and  idiotic.  So  great  was  the  excitement — my  fragile  form 
was  smashed  this  way  —  and  jammed  that  way  —  till  finally  I  was  shoved 
into  a  state-room  which  was  occupied  by  two  middle-aged  females  —  who 

said,  "  Base  man  —  leave  us  —  0,  leave  us!" I  left  t  h  em 0  h 

-I  left  them! 

We  reached  Acapulco  on  the  coast  of  Mexico  in  due  time.    Nothing  of 

special   interest  occurred   at  Acapulco only  some  of  the  Mexican 

ladies  are  very  beautiful.     They  all  have  brilliant  black  hair hair 


40 


KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


*'  black  as  starless  night  "- 
ily   Herald."    It  don't  curl. 


if  I  may  quote  from  the  "Fam- 
-  A  Mexican  lady's  hair  never  curls 

it  is  straight  as  an  Indian's.     Some  people's  hair  won't  curl  under 

any  circumstances. My  hair  won't  curl  under  two  shillings.* 

The  Chinese  form  a  large  element  in  the  population  of  San  Francisco 
—  and  I  went  to  the  Chinese  Theatre. 


THE   GREAT   THOROUGHFARE   OP   THE   IMPERIAL   CITY 
OP   THE   PACIFIC   COAST. 

A  Chinese  play  often  lasts  two  months.  Commencing  at  the  hero's 
birth,  it  is  cheerfully  conducted  from  week  to  week  till  he  is  either 
killed  or  married. 

*"  Under  Two  Shillings."  Artemus  always  wore  his  hair  straight  until  after  his  severe 
illness  in  Salt  Lake  City.  So  much  of  it  dropped  off  during  his  recovery  that  he  became  dis- 
satisfied with  the  long  meager  appearance  his  countenance  presented  when  he  surveyed  it  in 
the  looking-glass.  After  his  lecture  at  the  Salt  Lake  City  Theatre  he  did  not  lecture  again 
until  we  had  crossed  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  arrived  at  Denver  City,  the  capital  of  Colo- 
rado. On  the  afternoon  he  was  to  lecture  there,  I  met  him  coming  out  of  an  ironmonger's 
store  with  a  small  parcel  in  his  hand.  "I  want  you,  old  fellow,"  he  said;  "I  have  been  all 
round  the  city  for  them,  and  I've  got  them  at  last."  "Got  what?"  I  asked.  "A  pair  of 
curling-tongs.  1  am  going  to  have  my  hair  curled  to  lecture  in  •  to-night.  I  mean  to  cross 
the  plains  in  curls.  Come  home  with  me  and  try  to  curl  it  for  me.  I  don't  want  to  go  to  any 
idiot  of  a  barber  to  be  laughed  at."  I  played  the  part  of  friseur.  Subsequently  he  became 
his  own  "  curlist,"  as  he  phrased  it.  From  that  day  forth  Artemus  was  a  curly-haired  man. 


AHTEMU8  WARD. 


41 


The  night  I  was  there  a  Chinese  comic  vocalist  sang  a  Chinese  comic 
song.  It  took  him  six  weeks  to  finish  it  —  but  as  my  time  was  limited  I 
went  away  at  the  expiration  of  215  verses.  There  were  11,000  verses  to 

this  song  —  the  chorus  being  "Tural  lural  dural,  ri  fol  day  " which 

was  repeated  twice  at  the  end  of  each  verse making — as  you  will 

at  once  see  —  the  appalling  number  of  22,000  "tural  lural  dural,  ri  fol 
days " and  the  man   still   lives. 


Virginia  City  —  in  the  bright  new  State  of  Nevada. 

A  wonderful  little  city  —  right  in  the  heart  of  the  famous  Washoe 

silver  regions the  mines  of  which  annually  produce  over  twenty-five 

millions  of  solid  silver.  This  silver  is  melted  into  solid  bricks  —  of 
about  the  size  of  ordinary  house-bricks  —  and  carted  off  to  San  Fran- 
cisco with  mules.  The  roads  often  swarm  with  these  silver  wagons. 

One  hundred  and  seventy-five  miles  to  the  east  of  this  place  are  the 
Eeese  River  silver  mines  —  which  are  supposed  to  be  the  richest  in  the 
world. 

The  great  American  Desert  in  winter-time the  desert  which  is  so 

frightfully  gloomy  always.  No  trees no  houses no  people  — 


42  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

save  the  miserable  beings  who  live  in  wretched  huts  and  have  charge  of 
the  horses  and  mules  of  the  Overland  Mail  Company. 

Plains   Between  Virginia   City  and  Salt  Lake. — This  picture  is  a 

great  work  of  art. It  is  an  oil  painting — d  one  in  petroleum.    It 

is  by  the  old  masters.     It  was  the  last  thing  they  did  before  dying. 
They  did  this  and  then  they  expired. 


PLAINS  BETWEEN  VIRGINIA  CITY  AND  SALT  LAKF.. 


The  most  celebrated  artists  of  London  are  so  delighted  with  this 
picture  that  they  come  to  the  hall  every  day  to  gaze  at  it.  I  wish  you 
were  nearer  to  it — so  you  could  see  it  better.  I  wish  I  could  take  it  to 
your  residences  and  let  you  see  it  by  daylight.  Some  of  the  greatest 
artists  in  London  come  here  every  morn  ing  before  daylight  with  lanterns 
to  look  at  it.  They  say  they  never  saw  any  thing  like  it 
before and  they  hope  they  never  shall  again. 

When  I  first  showed  this  picture  in  K^ew  York,  the  audiences  were 
so  enthusiastic  in  their  admiration  of  this  picture  that  the  y  called 
for  the  artist and  when  he  appeared  they  threw  brick- 
bats at  him. 


—  the  strange  city  in 
the  city  of  the  people 


ARTEMUS   WARD.  43 

A  bird's-eye  view  of  Great  Salt  Lake  City 
the  desert  about  which  so  much  has  been  heard  - 
who  call  themselves  Saints. 

I  know  there  is  much  interest  taken  in  these  remarkable  people  — 

ladies  and  gentlemen and  I  have  thought   it  better  to  make  the 

purely  descriptive  part   of  my   entertainment  entirely  serious. 1 

will  not  —  then  —  for  the  next  ten  minutes  —  confine  myself  to  my  sub- 
ject. 


BIRD  8  KYB  VIEW  OF  SALT  LAKE  CITY. 


Some  seventeen  years  ago  a  small  band  of  Mormons  —  headed  by 
Brigham  Young  —  commenced  in  the  present  thrifty  metropolis  of 
Utah.  The  population  of  the  Territory  of  Utah  is  over  100^,000  —  chiefly 

Mormons and  they  are  increasing  at  the   rate  of  from  five  to  ten 

thousand  annually.  The  converts  to  Mormonism  now  are  almost  exclu- 
sively confined  to  English  and  Germans.  Wales  and  Cornwall  have  con- 
tributed largely  to  the  population  of  Utah  during  the  last  few  years. 
The  population  of  Great  Salt  Lake  City  is  20,000.  The  streets  are  eight 


44  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

rods  wide  and  are  neither  nagged  nor  paved.  A  stream  of  pure  mount- 
ain spring  water  courses  through  each  street  and  is  conducted  into  the 
gardens  of  the  Mormons.  The  houses  are  mostly  of  adobe,  or  sun-dried 
brick,  and  present  a  neat  and  comfortable  appearance.  They  are  usually 
a  story  and  a  half  high.  Now  and  then  you  see  a  fine  modern  house  in 
Salt  Lake  City,  but  no  house  that  is  dirty,  shabby  and  dilapidated ; 
because  there  are  no  absolutely  poor  people  in  Utah.  Every  Mormon 
has  a  nice  garden,  and  every  Mormon  has  a  tidy  dooryard.  Neatness  is  a 
great  characteristic  of  the  Mormons. 

The  Mormons  profess  to  believe  that  they  are  the  chosen  people  of 

Ood they  call  themselves  Latter-day  Saints and  they  call  us 

people  of  the  outer  world  Gentiles.     They  say  that  Mr.  Brigham  Young  - 

is  a  prophet  —  the  legitimate  successor  of  Joseph  Smith  —  who  founded  '  • 
the  Mormon  religion.      They  also  say  they  are  authorized  —  by  special 
revelation  from  heaven  —  to  marry  as  many  wives  as  they  can  comfort- 
ably support. 

This  wife-system  they  call  plurality.  The  world  calls  it  polygamy. 
That  at  its  best  it  is  an  accursed  thing,  I  need  not  of  course  inform  you 

but  you  will  bear  in  mind  that  I  am  here  as  a  rather  cheerful 

reporter  of  what  I  saw  in  Utah and  I  fancy  it  isn't  at  all  neces- 
sary for  me  to  grow  virtuously  indignant  over  something  we  all  know  is 
hideously  wrong. 

You  will  be  surprised  to  hear  —  I  was  amazed  to  see  —  that  among  the 
Mormon  women  there  are  some  few  persons  of  education  —  of  positive 
cultivation.  As  a  class,  the  Mormons  are  not  an  educated  people,  but  they 
are  by  no  means  the  community  of  ignoramuses  so  many  writers  have 
told  us  they  were. 

The  valley  in  which  they  live  is  splendidly  favored.  They  raise 
immense  crops.  They  have  mills  of  all  kinds.  They  have  coal,  lead  and 
silver  mines.  All  they  eat,  all  they  drink,  all  they  wear  they  can  pro- 
duce themselves,  and  still  have  a  great  abundance  to  sell  to  the  gold 
regions  of  Idaho  on  the  one  hand  and  the  silver  regions  of  Nevada  on 
the  other.  , 

The  president  of  this  remarkable  community the  head  of  the 

Mormon    church is    Brigham    Young.      He  is  called    President 

Young  —  and  Brother  Brigham.  He  is  about  54  years  old,  altho'  he 
doesn't  look  to  be  over  45.  He  has  sandy  hair  and  whiskers,  is  of 
medium  height,  and  is  a  little  inclined  to  corpulency.  He  was  born  in 
the  State  of  Vermont.  His  power  is  more  absolute  than  that  of  any  liv- 
ing sovereign.  Yet  he  uses  it  with  such  consummate  discretion  that  his 
people  are  almost  madly  devoted  to  him,  and  that  they  would  cheerfully 
•die  for  him  if  they  thought  the  sacrifice  were  demanded,  I  can  not  doubt. 


ARTEMUS  WARD. 


45 


He  is  a  man  of  enormous  wealth.      One-te'nth  of  every  thing  sold  in 

the  Territory  of  Utah  goes  to  the  church and  Mr.  Brigham  Young 

is  the  church.     It  is  supposed  that  he  speculates  with  these  funds 

at  all  events,  he  is  one  of  the  wealthiest  men  now  living  • 
eral  millions,  without  doubt.    He  is  a  bold  —  bad  man  — 


—  worth  sev- 
•  but  that  he  is 

also  a  man  of  extraordinary  administrative  ability,  no  one  can  doubt  who 
has  watched  his  astounding  career  for  the  past  ten  years.  It  is  only 
fair  for  me  to  add  that  he  treated  me  with  marked  kindness  during  my 
sojourn  in  Utah. 


The  West  Side  of  Main  Street — Salt  Lake  City  —  including  a  view 
of  the  Salt  Lake  Hotel.  It  is  a  temperance  hotel.*  I  prefer  temperance 
hotels  —  altho'  they  sell  worse  liquor  than  other  kind  of 

*  "Temperance  Hotel."  At  the  date  of  our  visit,  there  was  only  one  place  In  Salt  Lake 
City  where  strong  drink  was  allowed  to  be  sold.  Brigham  Young  himself  owned  the  prop- 
erty, and  vended  the  liquor  by  wholesale,  not  permitting  any  of  it  to  be  drunk  on  the  prem- 
ises. It  was  a  coarse,  inferior  kind  of  whisky,  known  in  Salt  Lake  as  "  Valley  Tan."  Through- 
out the  city  there  was  no  drinking -bar  nor  billiard  room,  so  far  as  I  am  aware.  But  a  drink 
on  the  sly  could  always  be  had  at  one  of  the  hard-goods  stores,  in  the  back  office  behind  the 
pile  of  metal  saucepans,  or  at  one  of  the  dry-goods  stores,  in  the  little  parlor  in  the  rear  of 
the  bales  of  calico.  At  the  present  time  I  believe  that  there  are  two  or  three  open  bars  in  Salt 
Lake,  Brigham  Young  having  recognized  the  right  of  the  "  Saints  "  to  "  liquor  up  "  occasion- 
ally. But  whatever  other  failings  they  may  have,  intemperance  can  not  be  laid  to  their 
charge.  Among  the  Mormons  there  are  no  paupers,  no  gamblers  and  no  drunkards 


46 


KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


li  o  t  els.     But  the  Salt  Lake  Hotel  sells  none nor  is  there  a  bar 

in  all  Salt  Lake  City but  I  found  when  I  was  thirsty  —  and  I  gen- 
erally am  —  that  I  could  get  some  very  good  brandy  of  one  of  the  elders 
—  on  the  sly  —  and  I  never  on  any  account  allow  my  business  to  inter- 
fere Avith  my  drinking. 


There  is  the  Overland  Mail  Coach that  is,  the  den  on  wheels  in 

which  we  have  been  crammed  for  the  past  ten  days  —  and  ten  nights. 

Those  of  you  who  have  been  in  Newgate* 

— and  stayed  there  any  length  of  time 

as  visitors can  realize  how  I  felt. 

The  American  Overland  Mail  Route  commences  at  Sacramento,  Cali- 
fornia, and  ends  at  Atchison,  Kansas.  The  distance  is  two  thousand  two 

hundred  miles but  you  go  part  of  the  way  by  rail.      The  Pacific 

Railway   is   now  completed   from   Sacramento,  California,    to   Fulsom, 

*  "  Been  in  Newgate."  The  manner  in  which  Artemus  uttered  this  joke  was  peculiarly 
characteristic  of  his  style  of  lecturing.  The  commencement  of  the  sentence  was  spoken  as  if 
unpremeditated;  then,  when  he  got  as  far  as  the  word  "  Newgate,"  he  paused,  as  if  wishing  to 
call  back  that  which  he  had  said.  The  applause  was  unfailingly  uproarious. 


ARTEMUS  WARD. 


47 


California, which  only  leaves  two  thousand  two  hundred  and  eleven 

miles  to  go  by  coach.     This  breaks  the  monoton  y it  came 

very  near  breaking  my  back. 


y  w  v  w\<v.->  A  >  yy  h 


Mormon  Theatre. — This  edifice  is  the  exclusive  property  of  Brig- 
ham  Young.  It  Avill  comfortably  hold  3,000  persons — and  I  beg  you  will 
believe  me  when  I  inform  you  that  its  interior  is  quite  as  brilliant  as  that 
of  any  theater  in  London. 

The  actors  are  all  Mormon  amateurs,  who  charge  nothing  for  their 
services.  -^-<r\At. 

You  nmst  know  that  very  little  money  is  taken  at  the  doors  of  this 
theater.  The  Mormons  mostly  pay  in  grain — and  all  sorts  of  articles. 

The  night  I  gave  my  little  lecture  -there,  among  my  receipts  were 
corn — flour — pork — cheese — chickens on  foot  andin  the  shell. 

One  family  went  in  on  a  live  pig and  a  man  attempted  to  pass 

a  "  yaller  dog"  at  the  box  office — but  my  agent  repulsed  him.  One 

offered  me  a  doll  for  admission another  infant's  clothing.  I  refused 

to  take  that a  s  a  general  rule  I  do  refuse. 

In  the  middle  of  the  parquet — in  a  rocking  chair — with  his  hat  on — 
sits  Brigham  Young.  When  the  play  drags — he  either  goes  out  or  falls 
into  a  tranquil  sleep. 


48 


KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


A  portion  of  the  dress-circle  is  set  apart  for  the  wives  of  Brigham 
Young.  From  ten  to  twenty  of  them  are  usually  present.  His  chil- 
dren fill  the  entire  galler y — and  more  too. 


TJie  East  Side  of  Main  Street  —  Salt  Lake  City  —  with  a  vieiv  of  the 
Council  Building.  The  Legislature  of  Utah  meets  there.  It  is  like  all 
legislative  bodies.  They  meet  this  winter  to  repeal  the  laws  which  they 

met  and  made  last  winter and  they  will  meet  next  winter  to  repeal 

the  laws  which  they  met  and  made  this  winter. 

I  dislike  to  speak  about  it but  it  was  in  Utah  that  I 

made  the  great  speech  of  my  life.  I  wish  you  could  have  heard  it.  I 
have  a  fine  education.  You  may  have  noticed  it.  I  speak  six 

different  languages London  —  Chatham  —  and  Dover Ma,r- 

gate  —  Brighton  —  and  Hastings.  My  parents  sold  a  cow  and  sent  me 
to  college  when  I  was  quite  young.  During  the  vacation  I  used  to  teach 

a  school  of  whales — -and  there's  where  I  learned  to  spout. I  don't 

expect  applause  for  a  little  thing  like  that.  I  wish  you  could  have  heard 

that  speech,  however.  If  Cicero he's  dead  now he  has  gone 

from  us but  if  old  Ciss*  could  have  heard  that  effort  it  would 

*  "  Old  Ciss."  Here  again  no  description  can  adequately  inform  the  reader  of  the  drollery 
which  characterized  the  lecturer.  His  reference  to  Cicero  was  made  in  the  most  lugubrious- 
manner,  as  if  he  really  deplored  his  death  and  valued  him  as  a  schoolfellow  loved  and  lost. 


ARTEXUS  WARD. 


49 


have  given  him  the  rinderpest.  Fll  tell  you  how  it  was.  There  are  sta- 
tioned in  Utah  two  regiments  of  U.  S.  troops the  21st  from  Califor- 
nia and  the  37th  from  Nevada.  The  20-onesters  asked  me  to  present  a 
stand  of  colors  to  the  37-sters,  and  I  did  it  in  a  speech  so  abounding  in 

eloquence  of  a  bold  and  brilliant  character and  also  some  sweet  talk 

real  pretty  shop-keeping  talk that  I  worked  the  enthu- 
siasm of  those  soldiers  up  to  such  a  pitch  —  that  they  came 
very  near  shooting  me  on  the  spot. 


Brigliam  Young's  Harem.  These  are  the  houses  of  Brigham  Young. 
The  first  one  on  the  right  is  the  Lion  House  —  so  called  because  a  crouch- 
ing stone  lion  adorns  the  central  front  window.  The  adjoining  small 
building  is  Brigham  Young's  office  —  and  where  he  receives  his  visitors. 
The  large  house  in  the  center  of  the  picture  —  which  displays  a  huge 
bee-hive — is  called  the  Bee  House.  The  bee-hive  is  supposed  to  be  sym- 
bolical of  the  industry  of  the  Mormons.  Mrs.  Brigham  Young  the  first 
— now  quite  an  old  lady  —  lives  herewith  her  children.  None  of  the 
other  wives  of  the  Prophet  live  here.  In  the  rear  are  the  school-houses 
where  Brigham  Young's  children  are  educated. 

Brigham  Young  has  two  hundred  wives.  Just  think  of  that! 
Oblige  me  by  thinking  of  that.  That  is  —  he  has  eighty  actual  wives 
and  he  is  spiritually  married  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  more.  These 


50  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

spiritual   marriages as  the   Mormons   call  them are  con- 

• 

tracted  with  aged  widows  —  who  think  it  a  great  honor  to  be  sealed 

the  Mormons  call  it  being  sealed to  the  Prophet. 

So  we  may  say  he  has  two  hundred  wives.  He  loves  not  wisely 
—  but  two  hundred  well.  He  is  dreadfully  married.  He's  the 
most  married  man  I  ever  saw  in  my  life. 

I  saw  his  mother-in-law  while  I  was  there.  lea  n't  exactly  tell 
you  how  many  there  is  of  her — but  it's  a  good  deal.  It  strikes 
me  that  one  mother-in-law  is  about  enough  to  have  in  a  family  —  unless 
you're  very  fond  of  excitement. 

A  few  days  befpre  my  arrival  in  Utah,  Brigham  was  married  again  to 

a  young  and  really  pretty  girl but  he  says  he  shall  stop  now.  He 

told  me  confidentially  that  he  shouldn't  get  married  any  more.  He  says 
that  all  he  wants  now  is  to  live  in  peace  for  the  remainder  of  his  days  — 
and  have  his  dying  pillow  soothed  by  the  loving  hands  of  his  family. 

"Well  —  that's  all  right that's  all  right  —  I  suppose but  if 

a  11  his  family  soothe  his  dying  pillow  —  he'll  have  to 
g o  o u t-d  oors  to  die. 

By  the  way — Shakespeare  indorses  polygamy.  He  speaks  of  the 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.  How  many  wives  did  Mr.  Windsor 
h  a  v  e  ? But  we  will  let  this  pass. 

Some  of  these  Mormons  have  terrific  families.  I  lectured  one  night 

by  invitation  in  the  Mormon  village  of  Provost but  during  the  day 

I  rashly  gave  a  leading  Mormon  an  order  admitting  himself  and  family. 

It  was  before  I  knew  that  he  was  much  married 

and  they  filled  the  room  to  overflowing.  It  was  a  great  success 
but  I  did  n't  get  any  money. 


ARTEMUS  WARD. 


51 


Heber  C.  Kimball's  Harem. — Mr.  H.  C.  Kimball  is  the  first  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  Mormon  church,  and  would,  consequently,  succeed  to  the  full 
presidency  on  Brigham  Young's  death. 

Brother  Kimball  is  a  gay  and  festive  cuss,  of  some  seventy  summers 

or  some'ers  thereabout.  He  has  one  thousand  head  of  cattle 
and  a  hundred  head  of  wives.  He  says  they  are  awful  eaters. 


H.  c.  KIMBALL' s  HAREM. 


Mr.  Kimball  had  a  son a  lovely  young  man who  was  married 

to  ten  interesting  wives.  But  one  day while  he  was  absent  from 

home these  ten  wives  went  out  walking  with  a  hand- 
some young  man — which  so  enraged  Mr.  KimbalFs  son  —  which 
made  Mr.  KimbalFsson  so  jealous  —  that  he  shot  himself  with  a  horse 
pistol. 

The  doctor  who  attended  him a  very  scientific  man informed 

me  that  the  bullet  entered  the  inner  parallelogram  of  his  diaphragmatic 


52  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

thorax,  superinducing  membraneous  hemorrhage  in  the  outer  cuticle  of 
his  basiliconthamaturgist.  It  killed  him.  I  should  have  thought  it 
would.  (Soft  music.)* 

I  hope  his  sad  end  will  be  a  warning  to  all  young  wives  who  go  out 
walking  with  handsome  young  men.  Mr.  Kimball's  son  is  now  no  more. 
He  sleeps  beneath  the  cypress,  the  myrtle  and  the 
willow.  This  music  is  a  dirge  by  the  eminent  pianist  for  Mr.  Kim- 
ball's  son.  He  died  by  request. 

I  regret  to  say  that  efforts  were  made  to  make  a  Mormon  of  me  while 
I  was  in  Utah. 

It  was  leap-year  when  I  was  there — and  seventeen  young  widows 

the  wives  of  a  deceased  Mormon offered  me  their  hearts  and  hands. 

I  called  on  them  one  day — and,  taking  their  soft  white  hands  in  mine 

which  made  eighteen  hands  altogether Ifoundthemin 

tears. 

And  1  said "  Why  is  this  thus?  What  is  the  reason  of  this  thus- 

ness?" 

They  hove  a  sigh seventeen  sighs  of  different  size.     They  said: 

"  Oh — soon  thou  wilt  be  gonested away!  " 

I  told  them  that  when  I  got  ready  to  leave  a  place  I  wentested. 

They  said,  "  Doth  not  like  us?  " 

I  said,  "  I  doth,  I  doth!" 

I  also  said:  "  I  hope  your  intentions  are  honorable — as  I  am  a  lone 
child my  parents  being  far — far  away." 

They  then  said,  "  Wilt  not  marry  us?  " 

I  said,  "Oh  —  no it  can  not  was." 

Again  they  asked  me  to  marry  them  —  and  again  I  declined.  When 
they  cried: 

"  Oh  —  cruel  man !     This  is  too  much oh !  too  much  ?  " 

I  told  them  that  it  was  on  account  of  the  muchness 
that  I  declined. 

*  "Soft  Music."  Here  Artemus  Ward's  pianist  (following  instructions)  sometimes  played 
the  Dead  March  from  "Saul."  At  other  times,  the  Welsh  air  of  4t  Poor  Mary  Ann  ;"  or  any 
thing  else  replete  with  sad  ness  which  might  chance  to  strike  his  fancy.  The  effect  was  irre- 
sistibly comic. 


ARTEMU8  WARD. 


53 


This  Mormon  Temple  is  built  of  adobe,  and  will  hold  five  thousand 
persons  quite  comfortably.     A  full  brass  and  string  band  often  assists  the 

choir  of  this  church and  the  choir,  I  may  add,  is  a  remarkably  good 

one. 


MORMON  TEMPLE. 


Brigham  Young  seldom  preaches  now.  The  younger  elders,  unless 
on  some  special  occasion,  conduct  the  services.  I  only  heard  Mr.  Young 
once.  He  is  not  an  educated  man,  but  speaks  with  considerable  force 
and  clearness.  The  day  I  was  there  there  was  nothing  coarse  in  his 
remarks. 


54 


KINGS  OF  TUB  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


These  are  the  Foundations  of  the  Magnificent  Temple  the  Mormons 
are  building.     It  is  to  be  built  of  hewn  stone — and  will  cover  several 


FOUNDATIONS   OF   THE   TEMPLE. 


acres  of  ground.     They  say  it  shall  eclipse  in  splendor  all  other  temples 
in  the  world.     They  also  say  it  shall  be  paved  with  solid  gold. 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  remark  that  the  architect  of  this  contem- 
plated gorgeous  affair  repudiated  Mormonism — and  is  now  living  in 
London. 


ARTEMUS  WARD. 


55 


The  Temple  as  It  Is  to  Be.—  This  pretty  little  picture  is  from  the 
architect's  design,  and  can  not,  therefore,  I  suppose,  be  called,  a  fancy 
sketch. 


wwwwwwwwwwwwwx 


THE  TEMPLE  AS  IT  IS  TO  BE. 


Should  the  Mormons  continue  unmolested,   I  think  they  will  com 
plete  this  rather  remarkable  edifice. 


56 


KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


Great  Salt  Lake.- 


-The  great  salt  dead  sea  of  the  desert. 


I  know  of  no  greater  curiosity  than  this  inland  sea  of  thick  brine. 
It  is  eighty  miles  wide  and  one  hundred  and  thirty  miles  long.  Solid 
masses  of  salt  are  daily  washed  ashore  in  immense  heaps,  and  the  Mor- 
mon in  want  of  salt  has  only  to  go  to  the  shore  of  this  lake  and  fill  his 
cart.  Only  —  the  salt  for  table  use  has  to  be  subjected  to  a  boiling 
process. 


GREAT  SALT  LAKE. 


These  are  facts  —  susceptible  of  the  clearest  possible  proof.  They  tell 
one  story  about  this  lake,  however,  that  I  have  my  doubts  about.  They 
say  a  Mormon  farmer  drove  forty  head  of  cattle  in  there  once,  and  they 
came  out  first-rate  pickled  beef. 


ARTEMUS  WARD. 


57 
I  am  a  man  short  — 


I  sincerely  hope  you  will  excuse  my  absence  — 
and  have  to  work  the  moon  myself.* 

I  shall  be  most  happy  to  pay  a  good  salary  to  any 
respectable  boy  of  good  parentage  and  education 
who  is  a  good  moonist. 


The  Endoivment  House. — In  this  building  the  Mormon  is  initiated 
into  the  mysteries  of  the  faith. 

Strange  stories  are  told  of  the  proceedings  which  are  held  in  this 

building but  I  have  no  possible  means  of  knowing  how  true  they 

may  be. 

*  "  The  Moon  Myself."  Here  Artemus  would  leave  the  rostrum  for  a  few  moments,  and 
pretend  to  be  engaged  behind.  The  picture  was  painted  for  a  night-scene,  and  the  effect 
intended  to  be  produced  was  that  of  the  moon  rising  over  the  lake  and  rippling  on  the  waters. 
It  was  produced  in  the  usual  dioramic  way,  by  making  the  track  of  the  moon  transparent,  and 
throwing  the  moon  on  from  the  bull's  eye  of  a  lantern.  When  Artemus  went  behind,  the 
moon  would  become  nervous  and  flickering,  dancing  up  and  down  in  the  most  inartistic  and 
undecided  manner.  The  result  was  that,  coupled  with  the  lecturer's  oddly  expressed  apology, 
the  "  moon  "  became  one  of  the  best  laughed-at  parts  of  the  entertainment. 


58  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Salt  Lake  City  is  fifty-five  miles  behind  ns — and  this  is  Echo  Canon,  in 
reaching  which  we  are  supposed  to  have  crossed  the  summit  of  the  Wah- 
satch  mountains.  These  ochre-colored  bluffs formed  of  conglom- 
erate sandstone,  and  full  of  fossils signal  the  entrance  to  the  canon. 

At  its  base  lies  Weber  Station. 

Echo  Canon  is  about  twenty-five  miles  long.  It  is  really  the  sublim- 
est  thing  between  the  Missouri  and  the  Sierra  Nevada.  The  red  wall  to 


ECHO 


the  left  develops  farther  up  the  canon  into  pyramids,  buttresses  and  cas- 
tles -  honeycombed  and  fretted  in  nature's  own  massive  magnificence 
of  architecture. 

In  1856  Echo  Cafion  was  the  place  selected  by  Brigham  Young  for 
the  Mormon  General  "Wells  to  fortify  and  make  impregnable  against  the 
advance  of  the  American  army,  led  by  General  Albert  Sidney  Johnston. 
It  was  to  have  been  the  Thermopylas  of  Mormondom  -  but  it  wasn't. 
General  Wells  was  to  have  done  Leonidas  -  but  he  didn't. 


ARTEMUS   WARD. 


59 


A  More  Cheerful  View  of  the  Eesert. — The  wild  snow-storms  have 
left  us — and  we  have  thrown  our  wolf-skin  overcoats  aside.  Certain 
tribes  of  far-western  Indians  bury  their  distinguished  dead  by  placing 
them  high  in  air  and  covering  them  with  valuable  furs that  is  a 


A    MOKE    CHEERFUL    VIEW    OF    THE    DESEKT. 


very  fair  representation  of  these  mid-air  tombs.  Those  animals  are 
horses 1  know  they  are — because  my  artist  says  so.  I  had  the  pict- 
ure two  years  before  I  discovered  the  fact.  The  artist  came  to  me 
about  sir  months  ago,  and  said:  "It  is  useless  to  disguise  it  from  you 
any  longer 1 hey  are  horse s." 


60  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

It  was  while  crossing  this  desert  that  I  was  surrounded  by  a  band  of 
Ute  Indians.  They  were  splendidly  mounted.  They  were  dressed  in 
beaver-skins,  and  they  were  armed  with  rifles,  knives  and  pistols. 

What  could  I  do? What  could  a  poor,  old  orphan  do?  I'm  a 

brave  man.  The  day  before  the  battle  of  Bull's  Eun  I  stood  in  the  high- 
way while  the  bullets those  dreadful  messengers  of  death were 


OUR  ENCOUNTER  WITH  THE  INDIANS. 


passing  all  around  me  thickly in  wagons on  their 

wayto  the  battlefield.*    But  there  were  too  many  of  these  Injuns. 

There  were  forty  of  them  —  and  only  one  of  me and  so  I  said: 

"  Great  Chief,  I  surrender."     His  name  was  Wocky-bocky. 

*  "  Their  Way  to  the  Battlefield."  This  was  the  great  joke  of  Artemus  Ward's  first  lecture, 
*•  The  Babes  in  the  Wood."  He  never  omitted  it  in  any  of  his  lectures,  nor  did  it  lose  its 
power  to  create  laughter  by  repetition.  The  audiences  at  the  Egyptian  Hall,  London,  laughed 
as  immoderately  at  it  as  did  those  of  Irving  Hall,  New  York,  or  of  the  Tremont  Temple,  in 
Boston. 


ARTEMUS  WARD.  61 

He  dismounted  and  approached  me.  I  saw  his  tomahawk  glisten  in 
the  morning  sunlight.  Fire  was  in  his  eye.  Wocky-bocky  came  very 
close  to  me  and  seized  me  by  the  hair  of  my  head.  He  mingled  his 
swarthy  fingers  with  my  golden  tresses,  and  he  rubbed  his  dreadful 
Thomashawk  across  my  lily-white  face.  He  said: 

"  Torsha  arrah  darrah  mishky  bookshean!  " 

I  told  him  he  was  right. 

Wocky-bocky  again  rubbed  his  tomahawk  across  my  face,  and  said : 
"  Wink-ho  —  loo-boo  !" 

Says  I:  "Mr.  Wocky-bocky,"  says  I,  "Wocky  —  I  have  thought 
so  for  years  —  and  so's  all  our  family." 

He  told  me  I  must  go  to  the  tent  of  the  Strong-Heart  and  eat  raw 
dog.  f  It  don't  agree  with  me.  I  prefer  simple  food.  I  prefer  pork- 
pie,  because  then  I  know  what  I'm  eating.  But  as  raw 
dog  was  all  they  proposed  to  give  to  me,  I  had  to  eat  it  or  starve.  So  at 
the  expiration  of  two  days  I  seized  a  tin  plate  and  went  to  the  chiefs 
daughter,  and  I  said  to  her  in  a  silvery  voice in  a  kind  of  German- 
silvery  voice 1  said: 

"  Sweet  child  of  the  forest,  the  pale-face  wants  his  dog." 

There  was  nothing  but  his  paws!  I  had  paused  too  long! 
Which  reminds  me  that  time  passes.  A  way  which  Time  has. 

I  was  told  in  my  youth  to  seize  opportunity.  I  once  tried  to  seize 
one.  He  was  rich.  He  had  diamonds  on.  As  I  seized  him  —  he  knocked 
me  down.  Since  then  I  have  learned  that  he  who  seizes  opportunity 
sees  the  penitentiary. 


t  "  Raw  Dog."  While  sojourning  for  a  day  in  a  camp  of  Sioux  Indians,we  were  informed 
that  the  warriors  of  the  tribe  were  accustomed  to  eat  raw  dog  to  give  them  courage  previous 
to  going  to  battle.  Artemus  was  greatly  amused  with  the  information.  When,  in  after  years, 
he  became  weak  and  languid,  and  was  called  upon  to  go  to  lecture,  it  was  a  favorite  joke  with 
him  to  inquire,  "  Kingston,  have  you  got  any  raw  dog  ?  " 


62  KINGS  OF  THB  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

The  Rocky  Mountains. — I  take  it  for  granted  you  have  heard  of  these 
popular  mountains.  In  America  they  are  regarded  as  a 
great  success,  and  we  all  love  dearly  to  talk  about  them.  It  is  a 
kind  of  weakness  with  us.  I  never  knew  but  one  American  who  hadn't 
something  —  some  time  —  to  say  about  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  he  was 
a  deaf  and  dumb  man  who  couldn't  say  any  thing  about  nothing. 


THE   ROCKY    MOUNTAINS. 


But  these  mountains,  whose  summits  are  snow-covered  and  icy  all  the 
year  round,  are  too  grand  to  make  fun  of.  I  crossed  them  in  the  winter 
of  '64  —  in  a  rough  sleigh  drawn  by  four  mules. 

This  sparkling  waterfall  is  the  Laughing- Water  alluded  to  by  Mr. 
Longfellow  in  his  Indian  poem — " Higher- Water."  The  water  is 
higher  up  there. 


ARTEMU8  WARD. 


63 


The  Plains  of  Nebraska. — These  are  the  dreary  plains  over  which  we 
rode  for  so  many  weary  days.  An  affecting  incident  occurred  on  these 
plains  some  time  since,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  pardon  me  for  men- 
tioning it. 


THE  PLAINS  OF  NEBRASKA. 


On  a  beautiful  June  morning  —  some  sixteen  years  ago 

(Music,  very  loud  till  the  scene  is  off.) 
***** 
***** 
***** 
***** 
***** 
***** 

and  she  fainted  on  Reginald's  breast  !* 

* "  On  Reginald's  Breast."    At  this  part  of  the  lecture  Artemua  pretended  to  tell  a  story 

—  the  piano  playing  loudly  all  the  time.    He  continued  his  narration  in  excited  dumb-show 

—  his  lips  moving  as  though  he  were  speaking.    For  some  minutes  the  audience  indulged  in 
unrestrained  laughter. 


64 


KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


TJie  Prairie  on  Fire. — A  prairie  on  fire  is  one  of  the  wildest  and 
grandest  sights  that  can  be  possibly  imagined. 

These  fires  occur — of  course  —  in  the  summer  —  when  the  grass  is 
dry  as  tinder and  the  flames  rush  and  roar  over  the  prairie  in  a 


THE  PRAIBIE  ON  FIKE. 


manner  frightful  to  behold.  They  usually  burn  better  than  mine  is 
burning  to-night.  I  try  to  make  my  prairie  burn  regularly 
—  and  not  disappoint  the  public but  it  is  not  as  high- 
principled  as  I  am. 


ARTEMUS  WARD. 


65 


Brigliam  Young  at  Home. — The  last  picture  I  have  to  show  you  repre- 
sents Mr.  Brigham  Young  in  the  bosom  of  his  family.  His  family  is 
large  —  and  the  olive  branches  around  his  table  are  in  a  very  tangled 
condition.  Heismoreafather  thananymanl  know.  When 


BRIGHAM  YOUNG  AT  HOME. 


at  home as  you  here   see  him heought  tobeveryhappy 

with  sixty  wivesto  ministerto  his  comforts  —  and  twice 
sixty  children  to  soothe  his  distracted  mind.  Ah  !  my 
friends what  is  home  without  a  family? 


66 


KINO 8  OF   THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


What  will  become  of  Mormonism?  We  all  know  and  admit  it  to  be 

a  hideous  wrong a  great  immoral  stain  upon  the  'scutcheon  of  the 

United  States.  My  belief  is  that  its  existence  is  dependent  upon  the  life 
of  Brigham  Young.  His  administrative  ability  holds  the  system 

together his  power  of  will  maintains  it  as  the  faith  of  a  community. 

When  he  dies,  Mormonism  will  die  too.  The  men  who  are  around  him 
have  neither  his  talent  nor  his  energy.  By  means  of  his  strength,  it  is 
held  together.  When  he  falls,  Mormonism  will  also  fall  to  pieces. 

That  lion  — you  perceive  —  has  a  tail.*  It  is  a  long  one  already. 
Like  mine —  it  is  to  be  continued  in  our  next. 


The  Curtain  Fell  for  the  last  time  on  Wednesday,  the  23d  of  January,  1867.  Artemus 
Ward  had  to  break  off  the  lecture  abruptly.  He  never  lectured  again. 

*  "  The  Lion  has  a  Tail."  The  lion  on  a  pedestal  as  painted  in  the  panorama— its  long-  tail 
outstretched  until  it  exceeded  the  length  of  the  lion  was  a  pure  piece  of  frolic  on  the  part  of 
Artemus.  The  Bee  Hive  and  the  Lion  suggesting  strength  and  industry  are  the  emblems 
chosen  by  Brigham  Young  to  represent  the  Mormons. 


ARTEMU8  WARD.  67 

PROGRAMME  USED  AT 

PTIAN      HALL, 
PICCADILLY. 


Every  Night  (except  Saturday)  at  8, 

SATURDAY  MORNINGS  AT  3. 


SlKTEMUS  liAKD 


AMONG  THE  MORMONS. 


During  the  Vacation  the  Hall  has  been  carefully  Swept  out,  and  a  new  Door-Knob 
has  been  added  to  the  Door. 


MR.  ABTEMTJS  WARD  will  call  on  the  Citizens  of  London,  at  their  residences,  and 

explain  any  jokes  in  his  narrative  which  they  may 

not  understand. 


A  person  of  long-established  integrity  will  take  excellent  care  of  Bonnets,  Cloaks,  etc., 
during  the  Entertainment;  the  Audience  better  leave  their  money,  however,  with  MR.  WARD  ; 
he  will  return  it  to  them  in  a  day  or  two,  or  invest  it  for  them  in  America  as  they  may 

think  best. 


|3T°  Nobody  must  say  that  he  likes  the  Lecture  unless  he  wishes  to  be  thought 
eccentric ;  and  nobody  must  say  that  he  doesn't  like  it  unless  he  really  is  eccentric.  (This 
requires  thinking  over,  but  it  will  amply  repay  perusal.) 


The  Panorama  used   to  Illustrate  Mr.    Ward's  Narrative  is  rather  worse  than 

Panoramas  usually  are. 


MR.  WARD  will  not  be  responsible  for  any  debts  of  his  own  contracting. 
5 


68  .        KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


APPEARANCE  OF  ARTEMUS  WARD, 

Who  will  be  greeted  \vith  applause.  IdP  The  Stall-keeper  is  particularly  requested 
to  attend  to  this.^^J)  When  quiet  has  been  restored,  the  Lecturer  will  present  a 
rather  frisky  prologue,  of  about  ten  minutes  in  length,  and  of  nearly  the  same  width. 
It  perhaps  isn't  necessary  to  speak  of  the  depth. 

ii. 

THE  PICTURES  COMMENCE  HERE,  the  first  one  being  a  view  of  the 
California  Steamship.  Large  crowd  of  citizens  oil  the  wharf,  who  appear  to  be 
entirely  willing  that  ARTEMCS  WARD  shall  go.  -'Bless  you,  Sir!"  they  say. 
"Don't  hurry  about  coming  back.  Stay  away  for  years,  if  you  want  to!" 
It  was  very  touching.  Disgraceful  treatment  of  the  passengers,  who  are  obliged 
to  go  forward  to  smoke  pipes,  while  the  steamer  herself  is  allowed  2  Smoke  Pipes 
amidships.  At  Panama.  A  glance  at  Mexico. 

in. 
THE  LAND  OF  GOLD. 

Montgomery  Street,  San  Francisco.  The  Gold  Bricks  Street  Scenes.  "The 
Orphan  Cabman,  or  the  Mule  Driver's  Step-Father."  The  Chinese  Theatre.  Sixteen 
square  yards  of  a  Chinese  Comic  Song. 

IV. 

THE  LAND  OF  SILVER. 

Virginia  City,  the  wild  young  metropolis  of  the  new  Silver  State.  Fortunes  are 
made  there  in  a  day.  There  are  instances  on  record  of  young  men  going  to  this  place  with- 
out a  shilling — poor  and  friendless — yet  by  energy,  intelligence,  and  a  careful  disre- 
gard to  business,  they  have  been  enabled  to  leave  there,  owing  hundreds  of  pounds. 

v. 
THE  GREAT  DESERT  AT  NIGHT. 

A  dreary  waste  of  Sand.  The  Sand  isn't  worth  saving,  however.  Indians 
occupy  yonder  mountains.  Little  Injuns  seen  in  the  distance  trundling  their  war- 
hoops. 

VI. 

A  BIRD'S-EYE  VIEW  OF  GREAT  SALT  LAKE  CITY. 

With  some  entirely  descriptive  talk. 

VII. 

MAIN  STREET,  EAST  SIDE. 

The  Salt  Lake  Hotel,  which  is  conducted  on  Temperance  principles.  The  land- 
lord sells  nothing  stronger  than  salt  butter. 


ARTEMUS  WARD,  69 

VIII. 

THE  MORMON  THEATRE. 

The  Lady  of  Lyons  was  produced  here  a  short  time  since,  but  failed  to  satisfy  a 
Mormon  audience,  on  account  of  there  being  only  one  Pauline  in  it.  The  play  was 
revised  at  once.  It  was  presented  the  next  night,  with  fifteen  Paulines  in  the  cast, 
and  was  a  perfect  success.  E3P  All  these  statements  may  be  regarded  as  strictly 
true.  Mr.  WARD  would  not  deceive  an  infant. 

IX. 

MAIN  STREET,  WEST  SIDE. 

This  being  a  view  of  Main  Street,  West  side,  it  is  naturally  a  view  of  the  West 
side  of  Main  Street. 

x. 

BRIGHAM  YOUNG'S  HAREM. 

Mr.  Young  is  an  indulgent  father,  and  a  numerous  husband.  For  further  par- 
ticulars call  on  Mr.  WARD,  at  Egyptian  Hall,  any  Evening  this  Week.  This 
paragraph  is  intended  to  blend  business  with  amusement. 

XI. 

HEBER  C.  KIMBALL'S  HAREM. 
We  have  only  to  repeat  here  the  pleasant  remarks  above  in  regard  to  Brigham. 


INTERMISSION  OF  FIVE  MINUTES. 


XII. 

THE  TABERNACLE. 

XIII. 

THE  TEMPLE  AS  IT  IS. 

XIV. 

THE  TEMPLE  AS  IT  IS  TO  BE. 

xv. 
THE  GREAT  SALT  LAKE. 

XVI. 

THE  ENDOWMENT  HOUSE. 

The  Mormon  is  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  his  faith  here.    The  Mormon's 
religion  is  singular  and  his  wives  are  plural. 

XVII. 

ECHO  CANON. 


70  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

XVIII. 

THE  DESERT,  AGAIN. 

A  more  cheerful  view.  The  Plains  of  Colorado.  The  Colorado  Mountains 
"  might  have  been  seen"  in  the  distance,  if  the  Artist  had  painted  'em.  But  lie  is 
prejudiced  against  mountains,  because  his  uncle  once  got  lost  on  one. 

XIX. 

BRIGHAM  YOUNG  AND  HIS  WIVES. 
The  pretty  girls  of  Utah  mostly  marry  Young. 

xx. 
THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 

XXI. 

THE  PLAINS  OF  NEBRASKA. 

XXII. 

THE  PRAIRIE  ON  FIRE. 

RECOMMENDATIONS. 


TOTNES,  Oct.  80th,  186G. 

MR.  ARTEMTTS  WARD:  My  dear  Sir— My  wife  was  dangerously  unwell  for  over  sixteen 
years.  She  was  so  weak  that  she  could  not  lift  a  teaspoon  to  her  mouth.  But  in  a  fortunate 
moment  she  commenced  reading  one  of  your  lectures.  She  got  better  at  once.  She  gained 
strength  so  rapidly  that  she  lifted  the  cottage  piano  quite  a  distance  from  the  floor,  and  then 
tipped  it  over  on  to  her  mother-in-law,  with  whom  she  had  had  some  little  trouble.  We  like  your 
lectures  very  much.  Please  send  me  a  barrel  of  them.  If  you  should  require  any  more 
recommendations,  you  can  get  any  number  of  them  in  this  place,  at  two  shillings  each,  the 
price  I  charge  for  this  one,  and  I  trust  you  may  be  ever  happy. 

I  am,  Sir, 
Yours  truly,  and  so  is  my  wife.  K.  SPRINGERS. 


An  American  correspondent  of  a  distinguished  journal  in  Yorkshire  thus  speaks 
of  Mr.  WAKD'S  power  as  an  Orator: 

It  was  a  grand  scene,  Mr.  ARTEMTTS  WARD  standing  on  the  platform,  talking :  many  of 
the  audience  sleeping  tranquilly  in  their  seats ;  others  leaving  the  room  and  not  returning; 
others  crying  like  a  child  at  some  of  the  jokes— all,  all  formed  a  most  impressive  scene,  and 
showed  the  powers  of  this  remarkable  orator.  And  when  he  announced  that  he  should  never 
lecture  in  that  town  again,  the  applause  was  absolutely  deafening. 

Doors  open  at  Half-past  Seven,  commence  at  Eight. 

Conclude  at  Half-past  Nine. 

EVERY  EVENING  EXCEPT    SATURDAY. 
SATURDAY  AFTERNOONS  AT  3  p.  M. 


ARTEMUS  WARD.  71 

ARTEMUS  WARD 


DODWORTH  HALL,  806  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK. 

OPEN    EVERY    EVENING. 

-  •>*<•  - 

1.  —  Introductory. 

2.—  The  Steamer  Ariel,  en  route. 

3.  —  San  Francisco. 

4.  —  The  Washoe  Silver  Region. 
5.—  The  Plains. 

6.—  The  City  of  Saints, 

7.  —  A  Mormon  Hotel. 

8.  —  Brigham  Young's  Theatre. 

9.  —  The  Council-House. 

10.  —  The  Home  of  Brigham  Young. 

11.  —  Heber  C.  Kimball's  Seraglio. 

12.  —  The  Mormon  House  of  Worship. 

13.  —  Foundations  of  the  New  Temple. 

14.  —  Architect's  View  of  the  Temple  when  finished. 
15.—  The  Great  Dead  Sea  of  the  Desert. 

16.—  The  House  of  Mystery. 

17.—  The  Canon. 

18.—  Mid-Air  Sepulture. 

19.  —  A  Nice  Family  Party  at  Brigham  Young's. 

It  requires  a  large  number  of  Artists  to  produce  this  Entertainment.  The  casual 
observer  can  form  no  idea  of  the  quantity  of  unfettered  genius  that  is  soaring,  like 
a  healthy  Eagle,  round  this  Hall  in  connection  with  this  Entertainment.  In  fact,  the 
following  gifted  persons  compose  the 

©ffidal  Bureau. 

Secretary  of  the  Exterior    .............    Mr.  E.  P.  Kingston. 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury  .....    Herr  Max  Field, 

(Pupil  of  Signer  Thomaso  Jacksoni.) 
Mechanical  Director  and  Professor  of  Carpentry    .....       Signor  G.  Wilsoni. 

Crankist  ..  '  ....................       Mons.  Aleck. 

Assistant  Crankist  ..................      Boy  (orphan). 

Artists      .................   Messrs.  Hilliard  &  Maeder. 

Reserved  Chairisfs     .............      Messrs.  Persee  &  Jerome. 

Moppist        .................       Signorina  O'Flaherty. 

Broomist       ................    Mile.  Topsia  de  St.  Moke. 

Hired  Man    .......................      John. 

Fighting  Editor    ................      Chevalier  McArone. 

Dutchman    ...........  By  a  Polish  Refugee,  named  McFinnigin. 

Doortendist       ................      Mons.  Jacques  Ridera. 

Gas  Man       .     .     .     .     ,     ..............        Artemus  Ward. 

This  Entertainment  will  open  with  music.  The  Soldiers'  Chorus  from  "  Faust." 
Jt^~  First  time  in  this  city.. 


72  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Next  comes  a  jocund  and  discursive  preamble,  calculated  to  show  what  a  good 
education  the  Lecturer  has.  • 

* 


View  the  first  is  a  sea-view. — Ariel  navigation. — Normal  school  of  whales  in  the 
distance. — Isthmus  of  Panama. — Interesting  interview  with  Old  Panama  himself,  who 
makes  all  the  hats.  Old  Pan  is  a  likely  sort  of  man. 

* 


San  Francisco.— City  with  a  vigilant  government. — Miners  allowed  to  vote. 
Old  inhabitants  so  rich  that  they  have  legs  with  golden  calves  to  them. 


Town  in  the  Silver  region. — Good  quarters  to  be  found  there. — Playful  popula- 
tion, fond  of  high-low-jack  and  homicide. — Silver  lying  around  loose. — Thefts  of  it 
termed  silver-guilt. 


The  plains  in  Winter. — A  wild  Moor,  like  Othello. — Mountains  in  the  distance 
forty  thousand  miles  above  the  level  of  the  highest  sea  (Musiani's  chest  C  included.) 
— If  you  don't  believe  this  you  can  go  there  and  measure  them  for  yourself. 


Mormondom,  sometimes  called  the  City  of  the  Plain,  but  wrongly  ;  the  women 
are  quite  pretty. — View  of  Old  Poly  Gamy's  house,  etc. 


The  Salt  Lake  Hotel. — Stage  just  come  in  from  its  overland  route  and  retreat 
from  the  Indians. — Temperance  house. — No  bar  nearer  than  Salt  Lake  sand-bars. — 
Miners  in  shirts  like  Artemus  Ward  his  Programme — they  are  read  and  will  wash. 


Mormon  Theatre,  where  Artemus  Ward  lectured. — Mormons  like  theatricals, 
and  had  rather  go  to  the  Play-house  than  to  the  Work-house,  any  time. — Private 
boxes  reserved  for  the  ears  of  Brother  Brigham's  wives. 


INTERMISSION  OF  FIVE  MINUTES. 


ARTEMUS  WARD.  73 

Territorial  State  House. — Seat  of  the  Legislature. — About  as  fair  a  collection  as 
that  at  Albany — and  "we  can't  say  no  fairer  than  that." 


Residence  of  Brigham  Young  and  his  wives. — Two  hundred  souls  with  but  a 
single  thought.  Two  hundred  hearts  that  beat  as  one. 


Seraglio  of  Heber  C.  Kimball. — Home  of  the  Queens  of  Heber. — No  relatives 
of  the  Queen  of  Sheba. — They  are  a  nice  gang  of  darlings. 


Mormon  Tabernacle,  where  the  men  espouse  Mormonism  and  the  women  espouse 
Brother  Brigham  and  his  Elders  as  spiritual  Physicians,  convicted  of  bad  doct'rin. 


Foundations  of  the  Temple. — Beginning  of  a  healthy  little  job. — Temple  to 
enclose  all  out-doors,  and  be  paved  with  gold  at  a  premium. 


The  Temple  when  finished. — Mormon  idea  of  a  meeting-house. — N.  B.  It  will 
be  bigger,  probably,  than  Dodworth  Hall. — One  of  the  figures  in  the  foreground  is 
intended  for  Heber  C.  Kimball. — You  can  see,  by  the  expression  of  his  back,  that 
•he  is  thinking  what  a  great  man  Joseph  Smith  was. 


The  Great  Salt  Lake. — Water  actually  thick  with  salt — too  saline  to  sail  in. — 
Mariners  rocked  on  the  bosom  of  this  deep  with  rock  salt. — The  water  isn't  very 
good  to  drink. 


House  where  Mormons  are  initiated. — Very  secret  and  mysterious  ceremonies. — 
Anybody  can  easily  find  out  all  about  them  though,  by  going  out  there  and  becoming 
a,  Mormon. 


Echo  Canon. — A  rough  bluff  sort  of  affair. — Great  Echo. — "When  Artemus  Ward 
"went  through,  he  heard  the  echoes  of  some  things  the  Indians  said  there  about  four 
years  and  a  half  ago. 


74  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

The  Plains  again,  with  some  noble  savages,  both  in  the  live  and  dead  state. — The 
dead  one  on  the  high  shelf  was  killed  in  a  Fratricidal  Struggle. — They  are  always 
having  Fratricidal  Struggles  out  in  that  line  of  country. — It  would  be  a  good  place 
for  an  enterprising  Coroner  to  locate. 


Brigham  Young  surrounded  by  his  wives. — These  ladies  are  simply  too  numerous 
to  mention. 


ose  of  the  Audience  who  do  not  feel  offended  with  Artemus  "Ward  are 
cordially  invited  to  call  upon  him,  often,  at  his  fine  new  house  in  Brooklyn.  His 
house  is  on  the  right  hand  side  as  you  cross  the  Ferry,  and  may  be  easily  distin- 
guished from  the  other  houses  by  its  having  a  Cupola  and  a  Mortgage  on  it. 


*        * 
k^f  Soldiers  on  the  battle-field  will  be  admitted  to  this  Entertainment  gratis. 


The  Indians  on  the  Overland  Route  live  on  Route  an  Herbs.     They  are  an 
intemperate  people.     They  drink  with  impunity,  or  any  body  who  invites  them. 


*        * 
Jt^°  Artemus  Ward  delivered  Lectures  before 

ALL  THE  CROWNED  HEADS  OF  EUROPE 

ever  thought  of  delivering  lectures. 

TICKETS  50  CTS.  RESERVED  CHAIRS  fl. 

Doors  open  at  7.30  P.  M.  Entertainment  to  commence  at  8. 


Honesty  taz  a  short  ~kxeeslt  and  branes  haz  no  peSigyee  at  alL— J.  B. 


Struggling  vfifri  Pus  Creji  SerTo-Comlc  Lectura 

THE  PROBABILITIES  OF  LIFE] 

Perhaps  rain— Perhaps  not. 


"JOSH    BILLINGS." 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

Henry  W.  Shaw,  the  well-known  wit  and  satirist,  better  known  as  "Josh  Bil- 
lings," was  born  at  Lanesborough,  Mass.,  in  1818,  of  a  family  of  politicians,  his 
father  and  grandfather  having  both  been  in  Congress.  He  went  early  in  life  to  the 
West,  where  for  twenty-five  years  he  was  a  farmer  and  auctioneer.  He  did  not  begin 
to  write  for  publication  till  he  was  forty-five  years  old.  He  has  been  one  of  the 
most  popular  of  popular  lecturers.  Mr.  Shaw  died  at  Monterey,  Cal.,  October  14, 
1885.  He  is  the  author  of  several  books  which  have  been  collected  into  one  large 
volume  by  Mr.  Dillingham,  successor  to  Geo.  W.  Carleton,  and  which  is  still  having  an 
immense  sale.  Mr.  Shaw  left  an  accomplished  wife  and  a  beautiful  daughter  to 
mourn  his  loss.  He  died  wealthy,  but  his  greatest  legacy  to  his  family  was  his  liter- 
ary reputation.  His  fame  spread  through  England  as  well  as  America. 

The  last  time  I  saw  Josh  Billings  was  on  a  Madison  avenue 
street  car  in  New  York  City.  I  think  of  him  as  I  saw  him  then, 
sitting  in  the  corner  of  the  car,  with  his  spectacles  on  his  nose,  and 
in  a  brown  study.  His  mind  was  always  on  his  work,  and  his  work 
was  to  think  out  dry  epigrams  so  full  of  truth  and  human  nature 
that  they  set  the  whole  world  laughing.  That  morning,  when  the 
old  man  espied  me,  he  was  so  busy  with  his  thoughts  that  he  did  not 
even  say  good  morning.  He  simply  raised  one  hand,  looked  over 
his  glasses  and  said,  quickly,  as  if  he  had  made  a  great  discovery : 

"I've  got  it,  Eli!" 

"Got  what?" 

"  Got  a  good  one — lem  me  read  it,"  and  then  he  read  from  a 
crumpled  envelope  this  epigram  that  he  had*  just  jotted  down: 

"  When  a  man  tries  to  make  himself  look  beautiful,  he  steals  —  he 
steals  a  woman1  s  patent  right how's  that  ?" 

"  Splendid,"  I  said.     "  How  long  have  you  been  at  work  on  it  ?" 

"  Three  hours,"  he  said,  "  to  get  it  just  right." 

Mr.  Shaw  always  worked  long  and  patiently  over  these  little 
paragraphs,  but  every  one  contains  a  sermon.  When  he  got  five  or 

76 


JOSH  BILLINGS.  77 

six  written,  he  stuck  them  into  his  hat  and  went  down  and  read  them. 
to  G.  "W.  Carleton,  his  publisher  and  friend,  who  was  an  excellent 
judge  of  wit,  and  he  and  Josh  would  laugh  over  them. 

One  day  I  told  Josh  that  I  would  love  him  forever  and  go  and 
put  flowers  on  his  grave  if  he  would  give  me  some  of  his  paragraphs 
in  his  own  handwriting.  He  did  it,  and  when  he  died  I  hung  a 
wreath  of  immortelles  on  his  tombstone  at  Poughkeepsie.  These 
are  the  sparks  from  his  splendid  brain  just  as  he  gave  them  to  me: 


Twiirr* 


hi 


s 


78  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


z,  2-    Lfms  m 
are 


So, 

The  next  day  after  Josh  gave  me  the  above  epigrams,  he  came 
and  dined  with  me,  and  together  we  smoked  and  laughed  and  fixed 
the  following  interview  : 

"  Mr.  Billings,  where  were  you  educated  ?  " 

"  Pordunk,  Pennsylvania." 

"  How  old  are  you  ?" 

"  I  Avas  born  150  years  old  —  and  have  been  growing  young  ever 
since." 

"  Are  you  married  ?  " 

"  Once." 

"  How  many  children  have  you  ?  " 

"  Doublets." 

"  "What  other  vices  have  you  ?  " 

"None." 

"  Have  you  any  virtues  ?  " 

"Several." 

"  What  are  they  ?  " 

"  I  left  them  up  at  Poughkeepsie." 

"  Do  you  gamble  ?  " 

"  "When  I  feel  good." 

"  "What  is  your  profession  ?  " 

"  Agriculture  and  alminaxing." 

"How  do  you  account  for  your  deficient  knowledge  in  spelling?" 

"  Bad  spells  during  infancy,  and  poor  memory." 

"  "What  things  are  you  the  most  liable  to  forget?" 

"  Sermons  and  debts." 

"  "What  professions  do  you  like  best  ?  " 

"  Auctioneeiing,  base-ball  and  theology." 

"  Do  you  smoke  ?  " 

"  Thank  you,  I'll  take  a  Partaga  first." 


JOSH  BILLINGS. 


79 


"  -What  is  your  worst  habit  ? " 

"  The  coat  I  got  last  in  Poughkeepsie." 

"  What  are  your  favorite  books  ? " 

"  My  alminack  and  Commodore  Yanderbilt's  pocketbook." 

"  "What  is  your  favorite  piece  of  sculpture?" 

"  The  mile  stone  nearest  home." 

"  What  is  your  favorite  animal? " 

"  The  mule." 

"Why?" 

"  Because  he  never  blunders  with  his  heels." 

"What  was  the  best  thing  said  by  our  old  friend  Artemus 
Ward?" 

"  All  the  pretty  girls  in  Utah  marry  Young" 

"  Do  you  believe  in  the  final  salvation  of  all  men  ? " 

"  I  do— let  me  pick  the  men  ! " 

In  the  evening  Josh  and  I  reviewed  the  interview,  and  pro- 
nounced it  faithfully  rendered.  He  wished  to  add  only  that  Mr. 
Carleton,  who  published  his  alminack,  had  the  most  immense  intel- 
lect of  this  or  any  other  age. 


WIT.   PHILOSOPHY   AND    WISDOM. 


This  is  Josh  Billings'  last  Lecture  Programme  : 


SYNOPSIS  or  THB  LECTURE  BY  JOSH. 


1— Remarks  on  Lecturing  —  General  Overture. 

3— The  Best  Thing  on  Milk. 

3— The  Summer  Resort. 

4 — Josh  on  Marriage. 

5— Josh  on  the  Mule. 

6— The  Handsome  Man,  a  Failure. 

7— The  Dude  a  Failure. 

8— What  I  know  about  Hotels. 

9— The  Bumble-bee. 
10— The  Hornet. 
11— The  Quire  Singer. 
12— Josh  on  Flirting. 
13— Courtin'. 


80  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Josh  Billings'  lecture  was  unique.  It  was  an  hour  of  short  para- 
graphs, every  one  worth  its  weight  in  gold.  The  great  philosopher 
always  wore  long  hair  (to  cover  a  wart  on  the  back  of  his  neck),  and 
always  sat  down  when  he  lectured.  He  delivered  his  quaint  philosophy 
with  his  bright  eyes  looking  over  his  glasses.  His  lecture  was  too  deep 
to  be  popular.  It  was  really  the  college  professor  or  reflecting  judge  who 
fully  appreciated  him.  Think  of  such  paragraphs  as  these  tumbling 
out  once  in  a  minute: 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — 

I  hope  you  are  all  well.     [Looking  over  his  glasses.] 

Thare  is  lots  ov  folks  who  eat  well  and  drink  well,  and  yet  are  sick 
all  the  time.  Theze  are  the  folks  who  alwuz  "  enjoy  poor  health." 

Then  I  kno  lots  ov  people  whoze  only  reckomendashun  iz,  that  they 
are  helthy so  iz  an  onion.  [Laughter.] 

The  subject  of  my  lecture  is  Milk — plain  M-i-l-k. 

The  best  thing  I've  ever  seen  on  milk  is  cream.     [Laughter.] 

That's  right  [joining].  "People  of  good  sense"  are  thoze  whoze 
opinyuns  agree  with  ours.  [Laughter]. 

People  who  agree  with  you  never  bore  you.  The  shortest  way  to  a 
woman's  harte  iz  to  praze  her  baby  and  her  bonnet,  and  to  a  man's  harte 
to  praze  hiz  watch,  hiz  horse  and  hiz  lectur. 

Eliar  Perkins  sez  a  man  iz  a  bore  when  he  talks  so  much  about  his- 
self  that  you  kant  talk  about  yourself.  [Laughter.] 

Still  I  shall  go  on  talking. 

Comik  lekturing  iz  an  unkommon  pesky  thing  to  do. 

Jt  iz  more  unsarting  than  the  rat  ketching  bizzness  az  a  means  ov 
grace,  or  az  a  means  ov  livelyhood. 

Most  enny  boddy  thinks  they  kan  do  it,  and  this  iz  jist  what  makes 
it  so  bothersum  tew  do. 

When  it  izdid  jist  enuff,  it  iz  a  terifick  success,  but  when  it  iz  over- 
did, it  iz  like  a  burnt  slapjax,  very  impertinent. 

Thare  aint  but  phew  good  judges  ov  humor,  and  they  all  differ 
about  it. 

If  a  lekturer  trys  tew  be  phunny,  he  iz  like  a  boss  trying  to  trot  back- 
wards, pretty  apt  tew  trod  on  himself.  [Laughter.] 

Humor  must  fall  out  ov  a  man's  mouth,  like  musik  out  ov  a  bobalink, 
or  like  a  yung  bird  out  ov  its  nest,  when  it  iz  feathered  enuff  to  fly. 

Whenever  a  man  haz  made  up  hiz  mind  that  he  iz  a  wit,  then  he  iz 
mistaken  without  remedy,  but  whenever  the  publick  haz  made  up  their 
mind  that  he  haz  got  the  disease,  then  he  haz  got  it  sure. 

Individuals  never  git  this  thing  right,  the  publik  never  git  it  wrong. 


JOSH  BILLINGS.  81 

Humor  iz  wit  with  a  rooster's  tail  feathers  stuck  in  its  cap,  and  wit  iz 
wisdom  in  tight  harness. 

If  a  man  is  a  genuine  humorist,  he  iz  superior  to  the  bulk  ov  hiz 
audience,  and  will  often  hev  tew  take  hiz  pay  for  hiz  services  in  think- 
ing so. 

Altho  fun  iz  designed  for  the  millyun,  and  ethiks  for  the  few,  it  iz  az. 
true  az  molasses,  that  most  all  aujiences  hav  their  bell  wethers,  people 
who  show  the  others  the  crack  whare  the  joke  cums  laffing  in.  (Where 
are  they  to-night?)  [Laughter.] 

I  hav  known  popular  aujences  deprived  ov  all  plezzure  during  the 
recital  ov  a  comik  lektur,  just  bekauze  the  right  man,  or  the  right 
woman,  want  thare  tew  point  out  the  mellow  places. 

The  man  who  iz  anxious  tew  git  before  an  aujience,  with  what  he- 
calls  a  comik  lektur,  ought  tew  be  put  immediately  in  the  stocks,  so- 
that  he  kant  do  it,  for  he  iz  a  dangerous  person  tew  git  loose,  and  will 
do  sum  damage. 

It  iz  a  very  pleazant  bizzness  tew  make  people  laff,  but  thare  iz  much 
odds  whether  they  laff  at  you,  or  laff  at  what  yu  say. 

"When  a  man  laffs  at  yu,  he  duz  it  because  it  makes  him  feel  superior 
to  you,  but  when  yu  pleaze  him  with  what  yu  have  uttered,  he  admits 
thatyu  are  superior  tew  him.  [Applause.] 

The  only  reazon  whi  a  monkey  alwus  kreates  a  sensashun  whareever 
he  goes,  is  simply  bekauze — he  is  a  monkey. 

Everyboddy  feels  az  tho  they  had  a  right  tew  criticize  a  comik  lectur, 
and  most  ov  them  do  it  jist  az  a  mule  criticizes  things,  by  shutting  up 
both  eyes  and  letting  drive  with  hiz  two  behind  leggs.  [Laughter.] 

One  ov  the  meanest  things  in  the  comik  lektring  employment  that  a 
man  haz  to  do,  iz  tew  try  and  make  that  large  class  ov  hiz  aujience  laff 
whom  the  Lord  never  intended  should  laff. 

Thare  iz  sum  who  laff  az  eazy  and  az  natral  az  the  birds  do,  but  most 
ov  mankind  laff  like  a  hand  organ — if  yu  expect  tew  git  a  lively  tune 
out  ov  it  yu  hav  got  tew  grind  for  it. 

In  delivering  a  comik  lektur  it  iz  a  good  general  rule  to  stop  sudden,, 
sometime  before  yu  git  through. 

This  brings  me  to  Long  branch. 

Long  branch  iz  a  work  ov  natur,  and  iz  a  good  job.  It  iz  a  summer 
spot  for  men,  wimmm  and  children,  espeshily  the  latter.  Children  are 
az  plenty  here,  and  az  sweet  az  flowers,  in  an  out  door  gardin.  I  put  up 
at  the  Oshun  Hotel  the  last  time  i  was  thare,  and  I  put  up  more  than  I 
ought  to.  Mi  wife  puts  up  a  good  deal  with  me  at  the  same  hotel,  it  iz 
an  old-fashioned  way  we  have  ov  doing  things.  She  allways  goes  with. 


82  KiyGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


me,  to  fashionable  resorts,  whare  young  widows  are  enny  ways  plenty,  to 
put  me  on  mi  guard,  for  i  am  one  ov  the  easyest  creatures  on  reckord  to 
be  impozed  upon,  espeshily  bi  yung  widders.  She  is  an  ornament  to  her 
sex,  mi  wife  iz.  I  would  like  to  see  a  young  widder,  or  even  an  old  one, 
git  the  start  ov  me,  when  mi  wife  iz  around.  [Laughter.]  If  I  just 
step  out  sudden,  to  get  a  weak  lemonade,  to  cool  mi  akeing  brow,  mi 
wife  goes  to  the  end  ov  the  verandy  with  me,  and  waits  for  me,  and  if  i 
go  down  onto  the  beach  to  astronomize  just  a  little,  all  alone,  bi  moon- 
lite,  she  stands  on  the  bluff,  like  a  beakon  lite,  to  warn  me  ov  the 
breakers. 

The  biggest  thing  they  hav  got  at  Long  branch,  for  the  present,  iz 
the  pool  ov  water,  in  front  ovthe  hotels.  This  pool  iz  sed  bi  good  judges 
to  be  3,000  miles  in  length,  and  in  sum  places  5  miles  thick.  Into  this 
pool,  every  day  at  ten  o'klock,  the  folks  all  retire,  males,  females,  and 
widders,  promiskuss.  The  scenery  here  iz  grand,  especially  the  pool, 
and  the  air  iz  az  bracing  az  a  milk  puntch.  Drinks  are  reasonable  here* 
espeshily  out  ov  the  pool,  and  the  last  touch  ov  civilizashun  haz  reached 
here  also,  sum  enterprising  mishionary  haz  just  opened  a  klub  house, 
whare  all  kind  ov  gambling  iz  taught. 

Long  branch  iz  a  healthy  place. 

Men  and  women  here,  if  they  ain't  too  lazy,  liv  snmtimes  till  they  are 
eighty,  and  destroy  the  time  a  good  deal  as  follows:  The  fust  thirty  years 
they  spend  in  throwing  stuns  at  a  mark,  the  seckond  thirty  they  spend  in 
examining  the  mark  tew  see  whare  the  stuns  hit,  and  the  remainder  is 
divided  in  cussing  the  stun-throvving  bizziness,  and  nussing  the  rumatizz. 

A  man  never  gits  to  be  a  fust  klass  phool  until  he  haz  reached  seventy 
years,  and  falls  in  luv  with  a  bar  maid  of  19,  and  marrys  her,  and  then,  — 
*****  Here  he  took  out  his  Waterbury  watch,  and  remarked,  as  he 
wound  it  up,  "  You  kant  do  two  things  to  wonst."  [Great  laughter.] 

I  luv  a  Rooster  for  two  things.  One  iz  the  crow  that  iz  in  him,  and 
the  other  iz,  the  spurs  that  are  on  him,  to  bak  up  the  crow  with. 

There  was  a  little  disturbance  in  the  gallery  now,  and  Uncle  Josh 
looked  over  his  glasses  and  remarked: 

"  Yung  man,  please  set  down,  and  keep  still,  yu  will  hav  plenty  ov 
chances  yet  to  make  a  phool  ov  yureself  before  yu  die."  [Laughter.] 

The  man  or  mule  who  can't  do  any  hurt  in  this  world  kan't  do  any 
good.  [Laughter.] 

This  brings  me  to  the  Mule  —  the  pashunt  mule.  The  mule  is  pashunt 
because  he  is  ashamed  of  hisself.  [Laughter.]  The  mule  is  haf  boss 
and  haf  jackass,  and  then  kums  tu  a  full  stop,  natur  diskovering  her 
mistake  .  Tha  weigh  more  accordin  tu  their  heft  than  enny  other  creeter, 


JOSH  BILLINGS.  83 

except  a  crowbar.  Tha  kant  heer  enny  quicker  nor  further  than  the 
hoss,  yet  their  ears  are  big  enuff  fur  snowshoes.  You  kan  trust  them 
with  enny  one  whose  life  aint  worth  more  than  the  mule's.  The  only 
way  tu  keep  them  into  a  paster  is  tu  turn  them- into  a  medder  jineing 
and  let  them  jump  out.  [Laughter.]  Tha  are  reddy  for  use  jest  as 
soon  as  tha  will  do  tu  abuse.  Tha  aint  got  enny  friends,  and  will  live  on 
huckleberry  bush,  with  an  akasional  chance  at  Kanada  thissels.  Tha  are 
a  modern  invention.  Tha  sell  fur  more  money  than  enny  other  domestic 
animal.  You  kant  tell  their  age  by  looking  into  their  mouth  enny  more 
than  you  could  a  Mexican  cannon.  Tha  never  hare  no  disease  that  a 
good  club  won't  heal.  If  tha  ever  die  tha  mus.t  come  right  to  life 
agin,  fur  I  never  herd  nobody  say  "  ded  mule."  I  never  owned  one, 
nor  never  mean  to,  unless  there  is  a  United  States  law  passed  requir- 
ing it.  I  have  seen  educated  mules  in  a  sircuss.  Tha  could  kick  and 
bite  tremenjis.  .  .  .  Enny  man  who  is  willing  to  drive  a  mule  ought 
to  be  exempt  by  law  from  running  for  the  legislatur.  Tha  are  the 
strongest  creeters  on  arth,  and  heaviest  according  tu  their  size.  I  herd 
of  one  who  fell  oph  from  the  tow-path  of  the  Eri  canawl,  and  sunk  as 
soon  as  he  touched  bottom,  but  he  kept  on  towing  the  boat  tu  the  next 
stashun,  breathing  through  his  ears,  which  was  out  of  the  water  about 
two  feet  six  inches.  I  didn't  see  this  did,  but  Bill  Harding  told  me  of 
it,  and  I  never  knew  Bill  Harding  tu  lie  unless  he  could  make  something 
out  of  it.  There  is  but  one  other  animal  that  kan  do  more  kicking  than 
a  mule,  and  that  is  a  Quire  Singer.  [Laughter.]  A  quire  singer  gig- 
gles during  the  sermon  and  kicks  the  rest  of  the  week.  My  advice  to 
quire  singers  is  as  follows: 

Put  your  hair  In  cirl  papers  every  Friday  nite  soze  to  have  it  in  good  shape  Sun- 
day morning.  If  your  daddy  is  rich  you  can  buy  some  store  hair.  If  he  is  very 
rich  buy  some  more  and  build  it  up  high  onto  your  head;  then  get  a  high-priced 
bunnit  that  runs  up  very  high  at  the  high  part  of  it,  and  get  the  milliner  to  plant 
some  high-grown  artificials  onto  the  highest  part  of  it.  This  will  help  you  sing  high, 
as  soprano  is  the  highest  part. 

When  the  tune  is  giv  out,  don't  pay  attention  to  it,  and  then  giggle.  Giggle  a 
good  eel. 

Whisper  to  the  girl  next  you  that  Em  Jones,  which  sets  on  the  2nd  seet  from  the 
front  on  the  left-hand  side,  has  her  bunnit  with  the  same  color  exact  she  had  last  year, 
and  then  put  your  book  to  your  face  and  giggle. 

Object  to  every  tune  unless  there  is  a  solow  into  it  for  the  soprano.  Coff  and 
hem  a  good  eel  before  you  begin  to  sing. 

When  you  sing  a  solow  shake  the  artificials  off  your  bunr.it,  and  when  you  come 
to  a  high  tone  brace  yourself  back  a  little,  twist  your  head  to  one  side  and  open  your 
mouth  the  widest  on  that  side,  shet  the  eyes  on  the  same  side  jest  a  triphle,  and  then 
put  in  for  dear  life. 

6 


84  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

When  the  preacher  gets  under  lied  way  with  his  preachin,  write  a  note  on  the 
blank  leaf  into  the  fourth  part  of  your  note  book.  That's  what  the  blank  leaf  was 
made  for.  Git  sumbody  to  pass  the  note  to  sumbody  else,  and  you  watch  them  while 
they  read  it,  and  then  giggle.  [Laughter.] 

If  anybody  talks  or  laffs  in  the  congregashun,  and  the  preacher  takes  notis  of  it, 
that's  a  good  chants  for  you  to  giggle,  and  you  ought  to  giggle  a  great  eel.  The 
preacher  darsent  say  any  thing  to  you  bekaus  you  are  in  the  quire,  and  he  can't  run 
the  meetin'  house  at  both  ends  without  the  quire.  If  you  had  a  bow  before  you 
went  into  the  quire,  give  him  the  mitten — you  ought  to  have  somebody  better  now. 

Don't  forget  to  giggle. 

The  quire  singer  suggests  the  bumble-bee. 

The  bumble-bee  iz  more  artistic  than  the  mule  and  as  busy  as  a  quire 
singer.  The  bumble-bee  iz  a  kind  ov  big  fly  who  goes  muttering  and 
swearing  around  the  lots  during  the  summer  looking  after  little  boys  to 
sting  them,  and  stealing  hunny  out  ov  the  dandylions  and  thissells. 
Like  the  mule,  he  iz  mad  all  the  time  about  sumthing,  and  don't  seem  to 
kare  a  kuss  what  people  think  ov  him. 

A  skool  boy  will  studdy  harder  enny  time  to  find  a  bumble-bee's  nest 
than  he  will  to  get  hiz  lesson  in  arithmetik,  and  when  he  haz  found  it, 
and  got  the  hunny  out  ov  it,  and  got  badly  stung  into  the  bargin,  he 
finds  thare  aint  mutch  margin  in  it.  Next  to  poor  molassis,  bumble- 
bee hunny  iz  the  poorest  kind  ov  sweetmeats  in  market.  Bumble-bees 
have  allwuss  been  in  fashion,  and  probably  allwuss  will  be,  but  whare  the 
fun  or  proffit  lays  in  them,  i  never  could  cypher  out.  The  proffit  don't 
seem  to  be  in  the  hunny,  nor  in  the  bumble-bee  neither.  They  bild  their 
nest  in  the  ground,  or  enny  whare  else  they  take  a  noshun  too,  and  ain't 
afrade  to  fite  a  whole  distrikt  skool,  if  they  meddle  with  them.  I  don't 
blame  the  bumble-bee,  nor  enny  other  fellow,  for  defending  hiz  sugar:  it 
iz  the  fust,  and  last  law  of  natur,  and  i  hope  the  law  won't  never  run  out. 
The  smartest  thing  about  the  bumble-bee  iz  their  stinger.  [Laughter.] 

Speaking  of  smart  things  brings  me  to  the  hornet: 

The  hornet  is  an  inflamibel  buzzer,  sudden  in  hiz  impreshuns  and 
hasty  in  his  conclusion,  or  end. 

Hiz  natral  disposishen  iz  a  warm  cross  between  red  pepper  in  the  pod 
and  fusil  oil,  and  hiz  moral  bias  iz,  "  git  out  ov  mi  way." 

They  have  a  long,  black  boddy,  divided  in  the  middle  by  a  waist  spot, 
but  their  phisikal  importance  lays  at  the  terminus  of  their  subburb,  in 
the  shape  ov  a  javelin. 

This  javelin  iz  alwuz  loaded,  and  stands  reddy  to  unload  at  a  minuit's 
warning,  and  enters  a  man  az  still  az  thought,  az  spry  az  liteuing,  and  az 
full  ov  melankolly  az  the  toothake. 

Hornets  never  argy  a  case  ;  they  settle  awl  ov  their  differences  ov 
opinyon  by  letting  their  javelin  fly,  and  are  az  certain  to  hit  az  a  mule  iz. 


JOSH  BILLINGS.  85 

This  testy  kritter  lives  in  congregations  numbering  about  100  souls, 
but  whether  they  are  mail  or  female,  or  conservative,  or  matched  in  bonds 
ov  wedlock,  or  whether  they  are  Mormons,  and  a  good  many  ov  them 
kling  together  and  keep  one  husband  to  save  expense,  I  don't  kno  nor 
don't  kare. 

I  never  have  examined  their  habits  much,  I  never  konsidered  it 
healthy. 

Hornets  build  their  nests  wherever  they  take  a  noshun  to,  and  seldom 
are  disturbed,  for  what  would  it  profit  a  man  tew  kill  99  hornets  and  hav 
the  100th  one  hit  him  with  hiz  javelin  ?  [Laughter.] 

They  bild  their  nests  ov  paper,  without  enny  windows  to  them  or 
back  doors.  They  have  but  one  place  ov  admission,  and  the  nest  iz  the 
shape  ov  an  overgrown  pineapple,  and  is  cut  up  into  just  as  many  bed- 
rooms as  there  iz  hornets. 

It  iz  very  simple  to  make  a  hornets'  nest  if  yu  kan  [Laughter]  but 
i  will  wager  enny  man  300  dollars  he  kant  bild  one  that  he  could  sell  to 
a  hornet  for  half  price. 

Hornets  are  as  bizzy  as  their  second  couzins,  the  bee,  but  what  they 
are  about  the  Lord  only  knows;  they  don't  lay  up  enny  honey,  nor  enny 
money;  they  seem  to  be  bizzy  only  jist  for  the  sake  ov  working  all  the 
time;  they  are  alwus  in  as  mutch  ov  a  hurry  as  tho  they  waz  going  for  a 
dokter. 

I  suppose  this  uneasy  world  would  grind  around  on  its  axle-tree  onst 
in  24  hours,  even  ef  thare  want  enny  hornets,  but  hornets  must  be  good 
for  sumthing,  but  I  kant  think  now  what  it  iz. 

Thare  haint  been  a  bug  made  yet  in  vain,  nor  one  that  want  a  good 
job;  there  is  ever  lots  of  human  men  loafing  around  blacksmith  shops, 
and  cider  mills,  all  over  the  country,  that  don't  seem  to  be  necessary  for 
anything  but  to  beg  plug  tobacco  and  swear,  and  steal  water  melons,  but 
yu  let  the  cholera  break  out  once,  and  then  yu  will  see  the  wisdom  of 
having  jist  sich  men  laying  around;  they  help  count.  [Laughter.] 

Next  tew  the  cockroach,  who  stands  tew  the  head,  the  hornet  haz  got 
the  most  waste  stummuk,  in  reference  tew  the  rest  of  hiz  boddy,  than 
any  of  the  insek  populashun,  and  here  iz  another  mystery;  what  on  'arth 
duz  a  hornet  want  so  much  reserved  corps  for? 

I  hav  jist  thought  —  tew  carry  his  javelin  in;  thus  yu  see,  the  more 
we  diskover  about  things  the  more  we  are  apt  to  know. 

It  iz  always  a  good  purchase  tew  pay  out  our  last  surviving  dollar  for 
wisdum,  and  wisdum  iz  like  the  misterious  hen's  egg;  it  ain't  laid  in 
yure  hand,  but  iz  laid  away  under  the  barn,  and  yu  have  got  to  sarch 
for  it. 


86  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

The  hornet  iz  an  unsoshall  kuss,  he  iz  more  haughty  than  he  is  proud, 
he  is  a  thorough-bred  bug,  but  his  breeding  and  refinement  has  made 
him  like  sum  other  folks  I  know  ov,  dissatisfied  with  himself  and  every 
boddy  ( Ise,  too  much  good  breeding  ackts  this  way  sometimes. 

Hornets  are  long-lived  —  I  kant  state  jist  how  long  their  lives  are, 
but'I  know  from  instinkt  and  observashen  that  enny  krittur,  be  he  bug 
or  be  he  devil,  who  iz  mad  all  the  time,  and  stings  every  good  chance  he 
kan  git,  generally  outlives  all  his  nabers. 

The  only  good  way  tew  git  at  the  exact  fiteing  weight  of  the  hornet 
is  tew  tutch  him,  let  him  hit  you  once  with  his  javelin,  and  you  will  be 
willing  to  testify  in  court  that  somebody  run  a  one-tined  pitchfork  into 
yer;  and  as  for  grit,  i  will  state  for  the  informaslmn  of  thoze  who  haven't 
had  a  chance  tew  lay  in  their  vermin  wisdum  az  freely  az  I  hav,  that  one 
single  hornet,  who  feels  well,  will  brake  up  a  large  camp-meeting. 
[Laughter.] 

What  the  hornets  do  for  amuzement  is  another  question  i  kant  answer, 
but  sum  ov  the  best  read  and  heavyest  thinkers  among  the  naturalists 
say  they  have  target  excursions,  and  heave  their  javelins  at  a  mark  ;  but 
I  don't  imbide  this  assershun  raw,  for  i  never  knu  enny  body  so  bitter  at 
heart  as  the  hornets  are,  to  waste  a  blow. 

Thare  iz  one  thing  that  a  hornet  duz  that  i  will  give  him  credit  for 
on  my  books — he  alwuz  attends  tew  his  own  bizziness,  and  won't  allow 
any  boddy  else  tew  attend  tew  it,  and  what  he  duz  iz  alwuz  a  good  job; 
you  never  see  them  altering  enny  thing;  if  they  make  enny  mistakes,  it  is 
after  dark,  and  aint  seen. 

If  the  hornets  made  half  az  menny  blunders  az  the  men  do,  even  with 
their  javelins,  every  boddy  would  laff  at  them. 

Hornets  are  clear  in  another  way,  they  hav  found  out,  by  tricing  it, 
that  all  they  can  git  in  this  world,  and  brag  on,  is  their  vittles  and 
clothes,  and  yu  never  see  one  standing  on  the  corner  ov  a  street,  with  a 
twenty-six  inch  face  on,  bekause  sum  bank  had  run  oph  and  took  their 
money  with  him. 

In  ending  oph  this  essa,  I  will  cum  tew  a  stop  by  concluding,  that  if 
hornets  was  a  little  more  pensive,  and  not  so  darned  peremptory  with 
their  javelins,  they  might  be  guilty  of  less  wisdum,  but  more  charity. 

This  brings  me  to  Flirts. 

Flirts  are  like  hornets,  only  men  like  to  be  stung  by  them. 

Some  old  bachelors  git  after  a  flirt,  and  don't  travel  as  fast  as  she  doz, 
and  then  concludes  awl  the  female  group  are  hard  to  ketch,  and  good 
for  nothing  when  they  are  ketched. 


JOSH  BILLINGS.  87 

A  flirt  is  a  rough  thing  to  overhaul  unless  the  right  dog  gets  after 
her,  and  then  they  make  the  very  best  of  wives. 

When  a  flirt  really  is  in  love,  she  is  as  powerless  as  a  mown  daisy. 
[Laughter.] 

Her  impudence  then  changes  into  modesty,  her  cunning  into  fears, 
her  spurs  into  a  halter,  and  her  pruning-hook  into  a  cradle. 

The  best  way  to  ketch  a  flirt  is  tew  travel  the  other  way  from  which 
they  are  going,  or  sit  down  on  the  ground  and  whistle  some  lively  tune  till 
the  flirt  comes  round.  [Laughter.] 

Old  bachelors  make  the  flirts  and  then  the  flirts  get  more  than  even, 
by  making  the  old  bachelors. 

A  majority  of  flirts  get  married  finally,  for  they  hev  a  great  quantity 
of  the  most  dainty  tidbits  of  woman's  nature,  and  alwus  have  shrewdness 
to  back  up  their  sweetness. 

Flirts  don't  deal  in  po'try  and  water  grewel;  they  have  got  to  hev 
brains,  or  else  somebody  would  trade  them  out  of  their  capital  at  the 
first  sweep. 

Disappointed  luv  must  uv  course  be  oil  on  one  side  ;  this  ain't  any 
more  excuse  fur  being  an  old  bachelor  than  it  iz  fur  a  man  to  quit  all 
kinds  of  manual  labor,  jist  out  uv  spite,  and  jine  a  poor-house  bekase  he 
kant  lift  a  tun  at  one  pop. 

An  old  bachelor  will  brag  about  his  freedom  to  you,  his  relief  from 
anxiety,  hiz  indipendence.  This  iz  a  dead  beat,  past  resurrection,  for 
everybody  knows  there  ain't  a  more  anxious  dupe  than  he  iz.  All  his 
dreams  are  charcoal  sketches  of  boarding-school  misses ;  he  dresses, 
greases  hiz  hair,  paints  his  grizzly  mustache,  cultivates  bunyons  and 
corns,  to  please  his  captains,  the  wimmen,  and  only  gets  laffed  at  fur  hiz 
pains. 

I  tried  being  an  old  bachelor  till  I  wuz  about  twenty  years  old,  and 
came  very  near  dicing  a  dozen  times.  I  had  more  sharp  pain  in  one 
year  than  I  hev  had  since,  put  it  all  in  a  heap.  I  was  in  a  lively  fever 
all  the  time. 

I  have  preached  to  you  about  flirts  (phemale),  and  now  I  will  tell  you 
about  Dandies. 

The  first  dandy  was  made  by  Dame  Nature,  out  of  the  refuse  matter 
left  from  making  Adam  and  Eve.  He  was  concocted  with  a  bouquet  in 
one  hand  and  a  looking-glass  in  the  other.  His  heart  was  dissected  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  found  to  be  a  pincushion  full  of  butterflies 
and  sawdust.  He  never  falls  in  love,  for  to  love  requires  both  brains  and 
a  soul,  and  the  dandy  has  neither.  He  is  along-lived  bird;  he  has  no 
courage,  never  marries,  has  no  virtues,  and  is  never  guilty  of  first-class 
vices. 


88  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"What  about  Marriage? 

They  say  love  iz  blind,  but  a  good  many  fellows  see  more  in  their 
sweethearts  than  I  can. 

Marriage  is  a  fair  transaction  on  the  face  ov  it. 

But  thare  iz  quite  too  often  put-up  jobs  in  it. 

It  is  an  old  institushun — older  than  the  Pyramids,  and  az  phull  ov 
hyrogliphics  that  nobody  can  parse. 

History  holds  its  tongue  who  the  pair  waz  who  fust  put  on  the  silken 
harness,  and  promised  to  work  kind  in  it,  thru  thick  and  thin,  up  hill 
and  down,  and  on  the  level,  rain  or  shine,  survive  of  perish,  sink  or 
swim,  drown  or  note. 

But  whoever  they  waz,  they  must  hev  made  a  good  thing  out  of  it, 
or  so  menny  ov  their  posterity  would  not  hev  harnessed  up  since  and 
drove  out. 

Thare  iz  a  grate  moral  grip  to  marriage;  it  iz  the  mortar  that  holds 
the  sooshul  bricks  together. 

But  thare  ain't  but  darn  few  pholks  who  put  their  money  in  matri- 
mony who  could  set  down  and  give  a  good  written  opinyun  whi  on  airth 
they  come  to  did  it. 

This  iz  a  grate  proof  that  it  iz  one  ov  them  natral  kind  ov  acksidents 
that  must  happen,  jist  az  birdz  fly  out  ov  the  nest,  when  they  hev  feath- 
erz  enuff,  without  being  able  tew  tell  why. 

Sum  marry  for  buty,  and  never  diskover  their  mistake:  this  is  lucky. 

Sum  marry  for  money,  and  don't  see  it. 

Sum  marry  for  pedigree,  and  feel  big  for  six  months;  and  then  very 
sensibly  cum  tew  the  conclusion  that  pedigree  ain't  no  better  than  skim- 
milk. 

Sum  marry  bekawze  they  hev  been  highsted  sum  whare  else;  this  iz 
a  cross  match,  a  bay  and  a  sorrel:  pride  may  make  it  endurable. 

Sum  marry  for  luv,  without  a  cent  in  their  pockets,  nor  a  friend  in 
the  world,  nor  a  drop  ov  pedigree.  This  looks  desperate,  but  it  iz  the 
strength  of  the  game. 

If  marrying  for  luv  aint  a  success,  then  matrimony  is  a  ded  beet. 

Sum  marry  because  they  think  wimmeu  will  be  scarce  next  year,  and 
live  tew  wonder  how  the  crop  holdz  out. 

Sum  marry  tew  get  rid  ov  themselves,  and  discover  that  the  game 
waz  one  that  two  could  play  at,  and  neither  win. 

Sum  marry  the  second  time  tew  get  even,  and  find  it  a  gambling 
game — the  more  they  put  down  the  less  they  take  up. 

Sum  marry,  tew  be  happy,  and,  not  finding  it,  wonder  where  all  the 
happiness  goes  to  when  it  dies. 


JOSH  BILLINGS.  89 

Sum  marry,  they  can't  tell  why,  and  live  they  can't  tell  how. 

Almost  every  boddy  gets  married,  and  it  is  a  good  joke. 

Sum  marry  in  haste,  and  then  sit  down  and  think  it  carefully  over. 

Sum  think  it  over  careful  fust,  and  then  set  down  and  marry. 

Both  ways  are  right,  if  they  hit  the  mark. 

Sum  marry  rakes  tew  convert  them.  This  iz  a  little  risky,  and  takes 
a  smart  missionary  to  do  it. 

Sum  marry  coquetts.  This  iz  like  buying  a  poor  farm  heavily  mort- 
gaged, and  working  the  balance  of  your  days  to  clear  oph  the  mort- 
gages. 

Married  life  haz  its  chances,  and  this  iz  just  what  gives  it  its  flavor. 
Every  boddy  luvs  tew  phool  with  the  chances,  bekawze  every  boddy 
expekts  tew  win.  But  I  am  authorized  tew  state  that  every  boddy  don't 
win. 

But,  after  all,  married  life  iz  full  az  certain  az  the  dry  goods  biz- 
ness. 

Kno  man  kan  tell  jist  what  calico  haz  made  up  its  mind  tew  do  next. 

Calico  don't  kno  even  herself. 

Dry  goods  ov  all  kinds  izthe  child  ov  circumstansis. 

Sum  never  marry,  but  this  iz  jist  ez  risky;  the  diseaze  iz  the  same, 
with  another  name  to. 

The  man  who  stands  on  the  banks  shivering,  and  dassent,  iz  more  apt 
tew  ketch  cold  than  him  who  pitches  hiz  head  fust  into  the  river. 

Thare  iz  but  few  who  never  marry  bekawze  they  won't — they  all 
hanker,  and  most  ov  them  starve  with  bread  before  them  (spread  on  both 
sides),  jist  for  the  lack  ov  grit. 

Marry  young!  iz  mi  motto. 

I  hev  tried  it,  and  I  know  what  I  am  talking  about. 

If  enny  boddy  asks  you  whi  you  got  married  (if  it  needs  be),  tell 
him  "yu  don't  recolhkt." 

Marriage  iz  a  safe  way  to  gamble — if  yu  win,  yu  win  a  pile,  and  if 
yu  loze,  yu  don't  loze  enny  thing,  only  the  privilege  of  living  dismally 
alone  and  soaking  your  own  feet. 

I  repeat  it,  in  italics,  marry  young! 

Thare  iz  but  one  good  excuse  for  a  marriage  late  in  life,  and  that  is 
— a  second  marriage. 

When  you  are  married,  don't  swap  with  your  mother-in-law,  unless 
yu  kin  afford  to  give  her  the  big  end  of  the  trade.  Say  "  how  are  you  " 
to  every  boddy.  Kultivate  modesty,  but  mind  and  keep  a  good  stock  of 
impudence  on  hand.  Be  charitable — three-cent  pieces  were  made  on 
purpose.  It  costs  more  to  borry  than  it  does  to  buy.  Ef  a  man  flatters 


90  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

yu,  yu  can  kalkerlate  he  is  a  roge,  or  yu  are  a  fule.  Be  more  anxus 
about  the  pedigree  yur  going  to  leave  than  yu  are  about  the  wun  some- 
body's going  to  leave  you.  Sin  is  like  weeds — seif-sone  and  sure  to  cum. 
Two  lovers,  like  two  armies,  generally  get  along  quietly  until  they  are 
engaged. 

I  will  now  give  young  men  my  advice  about  getting  married. 

Find  a  girl  that  iz  19  years  old  last  May,  about  the  right  hight,  with 
a  blue  eye,  and  dark-brown  hair  and  white  teeth. 

Let  the  girl  be  good  to  look  at,  not  too  phond  of  musik,  a  firm  dis- 
beleaver  in  ghosts,  and  one  ov  six  children  in  the  same  family. 

Look  well  tew  the  karakter  ov  her  father  ;  see  that  he  is  not  the 
member  ov  enny  klub,  don't  bet  on  elekshuns,  and  gits  shaved  at  least 
3  times  a  week. 

Find  out  all  about  her  mother,  see  if  she  haz  got  a  heap  ov  good  com- 
mon sense,  studdy  well  her  likes  and  dislikes,  eat  sum  ov  her  hum-made 
bread  and  apple  dumplins,  notiss  whether  she  abuzes  all  ov  her  nabors,  and 
don't  fail  tew  observe  whether  her  dresses  are  last  year's  ones  fixt  over. 

If  you  are  satisfied  that  the  mother  would  make  the  right  kind  ov  a 
mother-in-law,  yu  kan  safely  konklude  that  the  dauter  would  make 
the  right  kind  of  a  wife.  [Applause.] 

What  about  courtin'? 

Courting  is  a  luxury,  it  is  sallad,  it  is  ise  water,  it  is  a  beveridge,  it  is 
the  pla  spell  ov  the  soul. 

The  man  who  has  never  courted  haz  lived  in  vain;  he  haz  bin  a  blind 
man  amung  landskapes  and  waterskapes  ;  he  has  bin  a  deff  man  in  the 
land  ov  hand  orgins,  and  by  the  side  ov  murmuring  canals.  [Laughter.] 

Courting  iz  like  2  little  springs  ov  soft  water  that  steal  out  from  under 
a  rock  at  thefut  ov  a  mountain  and  run  down  the  hill  side  by  side  sing- 
ing and  dansing  and  spatering  each  uther,  eddying  and  frothing  and  kas- 
kading,  now  hiding  under  bank,  now  full  ov  sun  and  now  full  of  shadder, 
till  bime  by  tha  jine  and  then  tha  go  slow.  [Laughter.] 

I  am  in  favor  ov  long  courting  ;  it  gives  the  parties  a  chance  to  find 
out  each  uther's  tramp  kards;  it  iz  good  exercise,  and  is  jist  asmnersent 
as  2  merino  lambs. 

Courting  iz  like  strawberries  and  cream,  wants  tew  be  did  slow,  then 
yu  git  the  flavor. 

Az  a  ginral  thing  i  wouldn't  brag  on  uther  gals  mutch  when  i  waz 
courting,  it  mite  look  az  tho  yu  knu  tew  mutch. 

If  yn  will  court  3  years  in  this  wa,  awl  the  time  on  the  square,  if  yu 
don't  sa  it  iz  a  leettle  the  slikest  time  in  yure  life,  yu  kan  git  measured 
for  a  hat  at  my  expense,  and  pa  for  it. 


JOSH  BILLINGS.  91 

Don't  court  for  munny,  nor  buty,  nor  relashuns,  theze  things  are  jist 
about  az  onsartin  as  the  kerosene  ile  refining  bissness,  libel  tew  git  out  ov 
repair  and  bust  at  enny  minnit. 

Court  a  gal  for  fun,  for  the  luv  yu  bear  her,  for  the  vartue  and  biss- 
ness  thare  is  in  her;  court  her  for  a  wife  and  for  a  mother;  court  her  as 
yu  wud  court  a  farm  —  for  the  strength  ov  the  sile  and  the  parfeckshun 
ov  the  title;  court  her  as  tho'  she  want  a  fule,  and  yu  a  nuther ;  court  her 
in  the  kitchen,  in  the  parlor,  over  the  wash  tub,  and  at  the  planner; 
court  this  wa,  yung  man,  and  if  yu  don't  git  a  good  wife  and  she  don't 
git  a  good  hustband,  the  fait  won't  be  in  the  courting. 

Yung  man,  yu  kan  rely  upon  Josh  Billings,  and  if  yu  kant  make 
these  rules  wurk,  jist  send  for  him,  and  he  will  sho  yu  how  the  thing  is  did, 
and  it  shant  kost  you  a  cent. 


I  will  now  give  the  following  Advice  to  Lecture  Committees  outside  of 
this  town: 

1.  Don't  hire  enny  man  tew  lectur  for  yu  (never  mind  how  moral  he 
iz)  unless  yu  kan  make  munny  on  him. 

2.  Selekt  10  ov  yure  best  lookin  and  most  talking  members  tew  meet 
the  lekturer  at  the  depot. 

3.  Don't  fail  tew  tell  the  lekturer  at  least  14  times  on  yure  way  from 
the  depot  tew  the  hotel  that  yu  hav  got  the  smartest  town  in  kreashun, 
and  sevral  men  in  it  that  are  wuth  over  a  millyun. 

4.  When  yu  reach  the  hotel  introduce  the  lekturer  immejiately  to  at 
least  25  ov  yure  fust-klass  citizens,  if  you  hav  tew  send  out  for  them. 

5.  When  the  lekturer's  room  iz  reddy  go  with  him  in  masse  to  hiz 
room  and  remind  him  4  or  5  more  times  that  yu  had  over  3  thousand 
people  in  yure  city  at  the  last  censuss,  and  are  a  talking  about  having  an 
opera  house. 

6.  Don't  leave  the  lekturer  alone  in  his  room  over  15  minits  at  once; 
he  might  take  a  drink  out  ov  his  flask  on  the  sli  if  yu  did. 

7.  When  yu  introduce  the  lekturer  tew  the  aujience  don't  fail  tew  make 
a  speech  ten  or  twelve  feet  long,  occupying  a  haff  an  hour,  and  if  yu  kan 
ring  in  sumthing  about  the  growth  ov  yure  butiful  sitty,  so  mutch  the 
better.     [Laughter.] 

8.  Always  seat  9  or  10  ov  the  kommitty  on  the  stage,  and  then  if  it 
iz  a  kommik  lektur,  and  the  kommitty  don't  laff  a  good  deal,  the  aujience 
will  konklude  that  the  lektur  iz  a  failure;  and  if  they  do  laff  a  good  deal, 
the  aujience  will  konklude  they  are  stool-pigeons.     [Laughter.] 


92  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

9.  Jist  az  soon  az  the  lectur  is  thru  bring  75  or  80  ov  the  richest  ov 
jure  populashun  up  onto  the  stage  and  let  them  squeeze  the  hand  and 
exchange  talk  with  the  lekturer. 

10.  Go  with  the  lekturer  from  the  hall  tew  hiz  room  in  a  bunch,  and 
remind  him  once  or  twice  more  on  the  way  that  jure  sitty  iz  a  growing 
very  rapidly,  and  ask  him  if  he  don't  think  so. 

11.  If  the  lekturer  should  inquire  how  the  comik  lekturers  had  suc- 
ceeded who  had  preceded  him,  don't  forget  tew  tell  him  that  they  were 
all  failures.     This  will  enable  him  tew  guess  what  they  will  say  about 
him  just  az  soon  az  he  gits  out  ov  town.     [Laughter.  ] 

12.  If  the  lekturer's  fee  should  be  a  hundred  dollars  or  more,  don't 
Aesitate  tew  pay  him  next  morning,  about  5  minnits  before  the  train 
leaves,  in  old,  lop-eared  one-dollar  bills,  with  a  liberal  sandwitching  ov 
tobbakko-stained  shinplasters. 

13.  I  forgot  tew  say  that  the  fust  thing  yu  should  tell  a  lekturer, 
after  yu  had  sufficiently  informed  him  ov  the  immense  growth  ov  yure 
citty,  iz  that  yure  people  are  not  edukated  up  tew  lekturs  yet,  but  are 
grate  on  nigger-minstrels. 

14.  Never  fail  tew  ask  the  lekturer  whare  he  finds  the  most  appreshiated 
aujiences,  and  he  won't  fail  tew  tell  yu  (if  he  iz  an  honest  man)  that 
thare  ain't  no  state  in  the  Union  that  begins  tew  kompare  with  yures. 

15.  Let  15  or  20  ov  yure  kommitty  go  with  the  lekturer,  next  morn- 
ing, tew  the  kars,  and  az  each  one  shakes  hands  with  him  with  a  kind  ov 
deth  grip,  don't  forget  tew  state  that  yure  citty  iz  growing  very  mutch 
in  people. 

16.  If  the  night  iz  wet,  and  the  inkum  ov  the  house  won't  pay 
expenses,  don't  hesitate  tew  make  it  pay  by  taking  a  chunk  out  ov  the 
lekturer's  fee.     The  lekturers  all  like  this,  but  they  are  too  modest,  as  a 
klass,  tew  say  so. 

17.  I  know  ov  several  other  good  rules  tew  follow,  but  the  abuv  will 
do  .tew  begin  with. 

Your  Schoolmaster  will  tell  you  the  rest. 

Thare  iz  one  man  in  this  world  to  whom  i  alwus  take  oph  mi  hat,  and 
remain  uncovered  untill  he  gits  safely  by,  and  that  iz  the  distrikt  skool- 
master. 

When  I  meet  him,  I  look  upon  him  az  a  martyr  just  returning  from 
the  stake,  or  on  hiz  way  thare  tew  be  cooked. 

He  leads  a  more  lonesum  and  single  life  than  an  old  bachelor,  and  a 
more  anxious  one  than  an  old  maid. 

He  iz  remembered  jist  about  az  long  and  affektionately  az  a  gide 
board  iz  by  a  traveling  pack  pedlar. 


JOSH  BILLINGS.  93 

If  he  undertakes  tew  make  his  skollars  luv  him,  the  chances  are  he 
neglekt  their  larning;  and  if  he  don't  lick  them  now  and  then 
pretty  often,  they  will  soon  lick  him.     [Laughter.] 

The  distrikt  skoolmaster  hain't  got  a  friend  on  the  flat  side  ov  earth. 
The  boys  snow-ball  him  during  recess;  the  girls  put  water  in  hiz  hair 
die;  and  the  skool  committee  make  him  work  for  haff  the  money  a  bar- 
tender gits,  and  board  him  around  the  naberhood,  whare  they  giv  him 
rhy  coffee,  sweetened  with  mollassis,  tew  drink,  and  kodfish  bawls  3 
times  a  day  for  vittles.  [Laughter.] 

And,  with  all  this  abuse,  I  never  heard  ov  a  distrikt  skoolmaster 
swareing  enny  thing  louder  than —  Condem  it. 

Don't  talk  tew  me  about  the  pashunce  ov  anshunt  Job. 

Job  had  pretty  plenty  ov  biles  all  over  him,  no  doubt,  but  they  were 
all  ov  one  breed. 

Every  yung  one  in  a  distrikt  skool  iz  a  bile  ov  a  diffrent  breed,  and 
each  one  needs  a  diffrent  kind  ov  poultiss  tew  git  a  good  head  on  them. 

A  distrikt  skoolmaster,  who  duz  a  square  job  and  takes  hiz  codfish 
bawls  reverently,  iz  a  better  man  to-day  tew  hav  lieing  around  loose  than 
Solomon  would  be  arrayed  in  all  ov  hiz  glory. 

Soloman  waz  better  at  writing  proverbs  and  manageing  a  large  family, 
than  he  would  be  tew  navigate  a  distrikt  skool  hous. 

Enny  man  who  haz  kept  a  distrikt  skool  for  ten  years,  and  boarded 
around  the  naberhood,  ought  tew  be  made  a  mager  gineral,  and  hav  a 
penshun  for  the  rest  ov  his  natral  days,  and  a  hoss  and  waggin  tew  do 
hiz  going  around  in. 

But,  az  a  genral  consequence,  a  distrikt  skoolmaster  hain't  got  any 
more  warm  friends  than  an  old  blind  fox  houn  haz. 

He  iz  jist  about  az  welkum  az  a  tax  gatherer  iz. 

He  iz  respekted  a  good  deal  az  a  man  iz  whom  we  owe  a  debt  ov  50 
dollars  to  and  don't  mean  tew  pay. 

He  goes  through  life  on  a  back  road,  az  poor  az  a  wood  sled,  and 
finally  iz  missed —  but  what  ever  bekums  ov  hiz  remains,  i  kant  tell. 

Fortunately  he  iz  not  often  a  sensitive  man;  if  he  waz,  he  couldn't 
•enny  more  keep  a  distrikt  skool  than  he  could  file  a  kross  kut  saw. 
[Laughter.] 

Whi  iz  it  that  theze  men  and  wimmen,  who  pashuntly  and  with  crazed 
brain  teach  our  remorseless  brats  the  tejus  meaning  ov  the  alphabet,  who 
take  the  fust  welding  heat  on  their  destinys,  who  lay  the  stepping  stones 
and  enkurrage  them  tew  mount  upwards,  who  hav  dun  more  hard  and 
mean  work  than  enny  klass  on  the  futstool,  who  have  prayed  over  the 
reprobate,  strengthened  the  timid,  restrained  the  outrageous,  and  flat- 
tered the  imbecile,  who  hav  lived  on  kodfish  and  vile  coffee,  and  hain't 


94  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

been  heard  to  aware  —  whi  iz  it  that  they  are  treated  like  a  vagrant  fid- 
dler, danced  to  for  a  night,  paid  oph  in  the  morning,  and  eagerly  for- 
gotten. 

I  had  rather  burn  a  coal  pit,  or  keep  the  flys  out  ov  a  butcher's  shop  in 
the  month  ov  August,  than  meddle  with  the  distrikt  skool  bizzness. 
[Applause.] 

I  propose  now  to  close  by  making  Twelve  Square  Remarks,  to-wit: 

1.  A  broken  reputashun  iz  like  a  broken  vase;  it  may  be  mended,  but 
allways  shows  where  the  krak  was. 

2.  If  you  kant  trust  a  man  for  the  full  amount,  let  him  skip.       This 
trying  to  git  an  average  on  honesty  haz  allways  bin  a  failure. 

3.  Thare  iz  no  treachery   in  silence;  silence  is  a  hard  argument  to 
beat. 

4.  Don't  mistake  habits  for  karacter.     The  menov  the  most  karacter 
hav  the  fewest  habits. 

5.  Thare  iz  cheats  in  all  things;  even  pizen  is  adulterated. 

6.  The  man  who  iz  thoroughly  polite  iz  2-thirds  ov  a  Christian,  enny 
how. 

7.  Kindness  iz  an  instinkt,  politeness  only  an  art. 

8.  Thare  iz  a  great  deal  ov  learning  in  this  world,  which  iz  nothing 
more  than  trying  to  prove  what  we  don't  understand. 

9.  Mi  dear  boy,  thare  are  but  few  who  kan  kommence  at  the  middle 
ov  the  ladder  and  reach  the  top;  and  probably  you  and  I  don't  belong  to 
that  number. 

10.  One  ov  the  biggest  mistakes  made  yet  iz  made  by  the  man  who 
thinks  he  iz  temperate,  just  becauze  he  puts  more  water  in  his  whiskey 
than  his  nabor  does. 

11.  The  best  medicine  I  know  ov  for  the  rumatism  iz  to  thank  the 
Lord — that  it  aint  the  gout.    [Laughter.] 

12.  Remember  the  poor.     It  costs  nothing.   [Laughter.] 


JOSII  BILLINGS. 


JOSH  BILLINGS'  AULMINAX. 

Mr.  Shaw  had  a  wonderful  success  with  his  burlesque  almanac. 
He  sold  hundreds  of  thousands  of  copies,  and  it  was  always  repro- 
duced in  England.  He  generally  dedicated  the  almanac  to  some 
business  house  for  $500  in  cash,  and  got  his  money  for  it.  Below 
are  Uncle  Josh's  weather  predictions  for  March: 

March  begins  on  Saturday,  and  hangs  out  for  31  days. 

Saturday,  1st. — Sum  wind;  look  out  for  squalls,  and  pack  peddlers;  munny  iz 
tight,  so  are  briks.  Ben  Jonson  had  his  boots  tapped  1574;  eggs  a  dollar  a  piece, 
hens  on  a  strike;  mercury  45  degrees  above  zero;  snow,  mixed  with  wind. 

Sunday,  2nd. — Horace  Greeley  preaches  in  Grace  church;  text,  "  the  gentleman 
in  black;"  wind  northwest,  with  simptoms  of  dust;  hen  strike  continues;  the  ring- 
leaders are  finally  arrested  and  sent  to  pot;  eggs  eazier. 

Monday,  3rd. — Big  wind;  omnibus,  with  17  passengers  inside,  blown  over  in 
Broadway;  sow  lettuce,  and  sow  on  buttons;  about  these  days  look  out  for  wind; 
Augustus  Ceazer  sighns  the  tempranse  pledge  1286;  strong  simptoms  ov  spring; 
blue  birds  and  organ  grinders  make  their  appearance;  sun  sets  in  wind. 

Tuesday,  4th. — Augustus  Ceazer  breaks  the  pledge  1286;  "  put  not  you  trust  in 
kings  and  princes;  "  much  wind  with  rain;  a  whole  lot  ov  naughty  children  destroyed  in 
Mercer  street  by  wind;  several  gusts  ov  wind;  buckwheat  slapjacks  invented  1745; 
Andy  Johnson  commits  suicide;  grate  failure  in  Wall  street;  the  Bulls  fail  tew  inflate 
Erie;  windy. 

Wenesday,  5th. — A  good  day  tew  set  a  hen;  mutch  wind;  "  he  that  spareth  the 
child,  hateth  the  rod; "  wind  raises  awnings,  and  hoop  skirts;  William  Seward  resigns 
in  favor  ov  Fernando  Would;  Thad  Stevens  jines  the  Mormons. 

Tliursday,  6th. — Wind  generally,  accompanied  with  wind  from  the  east;  the 
Black  Crook  still  rages;  more  wind;  whisky  hots  still  in  favor  ov  the  seller;  sow  peas 
and  punkin  pies,  for  arly  sass;  babes  in  the  woods  born  1600;  wind  threatens. 

Friday,  7th. — Fred  Douglass  nominated  for  president  by  the  demokrats;  black 
clouds  in  the  west;  wind  brewing;  grate  scare  in  Nassau  street;  a  man  runs  over  a 
horce;  Docktors  Pug  and  Bug  in  immediate  attendance;  horce  not  expekted  tew  live. 
Rain  and  snow  and  wind  and  mud,  about  equally  mixt. 

Saturday,  8th. — Horce  more  easier  this  morning;  mint  julips  offered,  but  no 
takers.  About  tliose  days  expect  wind;  wind  from  the  northwest;  a  good  day  for 
wind  mills.  Half-past  5  o'clock,  P.  M.,  the  following  notis  appears  on  all  the  bulle- 
tin boards:  "  Doctor  Pug  thinks  the  horce,  with  the  most  skillful  treatment  at  the 
hands  ov  the  attendant  physicians,  may  possibly  be  rendered  suitable  for  a  clam 
wagon,  and  Doctor  Bug  corroborates  Pug,  provided,  the  oleaginous  dipthong  that, 
connects  the  parodial  glysses  with  the  nervaqular  episode  is  not  displaced;  if  so,  the 
most  consumit  skill  ov  the  profeshion  will  be  requisite  to  restore  a  secondary  unity." 
Later — "The  horce  has  been  turned  out  tew  grass." 

Sunday,  9th. — This  is  the  Sabbath,  a  day  that  our  fathers  thought  a  good  deal  ov. 
Mutch  wind  (in  some  ov  the  churches);  streets  lively,  bissiness  good;  prize  fight  on 
the  palisades;  police  reach  the  ground  after  the  fight  is  aul  over,  and  arrest  the  ropes 
and  the  ring.  Wind  sutherly;  a  lager-beer  spring  discovered  just  out  ov  the  limits 
ov  the  city;  millions  are  flocking  out  to  see  it. 


96  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Monday,  JOth. — A  gale,  mile  stuns  are  torn  up  bi  the  rates;  fight  for  70u  dollars 
and  the  belt,  at  Red  Bank,  Nu  Jersey,  between  two  well  known  roosters;  oysters  fust 
eaten  on  the  half  shell  1342,  by  Don  Bivalvo,  an  Irish  Duke;  sun  sets  In  the  west. 

Tuesday,  llth. — Roosters  still  fighting;  indications  ov  wind;  counterfeit  Tens  in 
circulashun  on  the  Faro  Bank;  look  out  for  them;  milk  only  15  cents  a  quart;  thank 
the  Lord,  "the  good  time"  has  finally  come;  Don  Quixot  fights  hts  first  wind  mill, 
1510,  at  short  range,  and  got  whipped  the  second  round;  time,  14  minnits. 

9:30  P.  M. — Torch-lite  procession  at  Red  Bank,  in  honor  ov  the  winning  rooster. 

Wednesday,  12t7i. — Sum  wind,  with  wet  showers;  showers  smell  strong  ov  dandy- 
lions  and  grass;  gold,  132  17-16;  exchange  on  Brooklin  and  Williamsburgh,  one  cent 
(by  the  ferry  boats). 

Thursday,  13th. — Bad  day  for  the  aulminak  bissiness;  no  nuze;  no  wind;  no 
cards;  no  nothing. 

Friday,  14th. — Wendal  Phillips  tares  up  the-  constitushun  ov  the  United  States; 
"alas!  poor  Yorick;"  rain  from  abuv;  strawberries,  watermillions  and  peaches  git- 
ting  skase;  rain  continners,  accompanied  with  thunder  and  slight  rnoister;  mercury 
abuv  zero. 

Saturday,  25th. — Grate  fraud  diskovered  in  the  custom  house — 3  dollars  missing; 
fifty  subordinates  suspended;  a  wet  rain  sets  in;  robbins  cum,  and  immediately  begin 
tew  enquire  for  sum  cherrys. 

Sunday,  16th. — Henry  W.  Beecher  preaches  in  Brooklyn  by  partickular  request; 
dandylions  in  market,  only  15  cents  a  head. 

Monday,  17th. — Plant  sum  beans;  plant  them  deep;  if  yu  don't  they  will  be  sure 
tew  cum  up.  Robinson  Cruso  born  1515,  all  alone,  on  a  destitute  iland.  Warm  rain, 
uiixt  with  wind;  woodchucks  cum  out  ov  their  holes  and  begin  tew  chuck  a  little. 

Tuesday,  18th. — Look  out  for  rain  and  yu  will  be  apt  tew  see  it;  wind  sow  by  sow 
west;  ice  discovered  in  our  Rushion  purchiss;  miners  rushing  that  way;  geese  are 
seen  marching  in  single  phile,  a  sure  indicashun  ovthe  cholera;  musketose  invented 
by  George  Tucker,  Esq.,  1491;  patent  applied  for,  but  refused,  on  the  ground  that 
they  might  bight  sumboddy. 

Wenesday,  19th. — A  mare's  nest  discovered  in  Ontary  county;  a  warm  and 
slightly  liquid  rain;  thousands  ov  people  hav  visited  the  nest;  windy;  the  old  mare 
is  dredful  cross  and  kickful;  hens  average  an  egg  a  day,  beside  several  cackels. 

Thursday,  20th. — Appearance  ov  rain;  plant  corn  for  early  whiskey;  frogs  hold 
their  fust  concert — Ole  Bullfrog  musical  direcktor — matinee  every  afternoon;  snakes 
are  caught  wriggling  (an  old  trick  ov  theirs);  a  warm  and  muggy  night;  yu  can  hear 
the  bullheads  bark;  United  States  buys  the  iland  ov  Great  Britain. 


"PETROLEUM  V.    NASBY.' 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

David  Ross  Locke  was  bora  in  Vestal,  Broome  county,  N.  Y.,  in  1833,  and  died 
in  Xew  York  City  in  1888.  He  is  sometimes  called  a  humorist,  but  he  always  pre- 
ferred to  be  called  a  satirist.  He  was  the  Cervantes  of  America.  His  mission  was  to 
exaggerate  error,  and  make  it  odious. 

Mr.  Xasby's  political  influence  was  so  great  that  National  Committees  waited 
upon  him  for  advice,  and  Presidential  candidates  were  glad  to  listen  to  his  words  of 
counsel. 

The  satirist  published  several  books,  all  of  which  had  an  immense  sale.  He  aied 
leaving  an  estate  in  Toledo  worth  more  than  a  million  of  dollars,  besides  his  great 
newspaper,  TJie  Toledo  Bludc,  now  edited  by  his  son.  He  left  an  accomplished  wife 
and  a  family  of  gifted  children,  who  well  do  honor  to  the  man  whom  President  Lin- 
coln envied. 

One  day,  speaking  of  satire,  the  gifted  man  said  to  me : 

"I  can  kill  more  error  by  exaggerating  vice  than  by  abusing  it. 
In  all  my  writings  I  have  not  said  one  unkind  word  about  any  people 
or  party.  I  have-  simply  exaggerated  errors  in  politics,  love  and 
religion,  until  the  people  saw  these  errors,  and  rose  up  against  them. 
The  humorist  would  describe  '  Deeken  Pogram '  and  '  Joe  Bigler,' 
of  the  '  Confedrit  X  Roads,'  just  as  they  are.  That  would  have 
caused  laughter;  but  I  exaggerated  these  characters,  as  Cervantes 
exaggerated  Don  Quixote,  and  made  them  ridiculous." 

Charles  Sumner,  in  his  introduction  to  Nasby's  great  book,  said  : 
"  President  Lincoln  read  every  letter  from  Nasby's  pen." 

Mr.  Xasby's  satires  have  always  been  directed  against  such  evils 
as  slavery,  intemperance  and  partisan  suffrage.  He  has  always 
maintained  the  true  democracy,  that  one  man  is  as  good  as  another 
if  he  is  as  clean  and  as  well  educated. 

"  One  day,"  said  Nasby,  "  a  poor  ignorant  white  man  came  to  the 
polls  in  Kentucky  to  vote. 

"  '  I  wish  you  would  oblige  me  by  voting  this  ticket,'  said  a  light- 
colored  mulatto,  who  was  standing  near  the  polls. 

98 


NIGGERS  DON'T  KNOW  ENOUGH  TO  VOTE. 


See  page  99. 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASBY.  99 

"  *  What  kind  of  ticket  is  it  ?  '  asked  the  poor  white  man. 

"  '  Why,'  said  the  mulatto  '  you  can  see  for  yourself.' 

"  *  But  I  can't  read.' 

"  '  What  !  can't  you  read  the  ballot  you  have  there  in  your  hand, 
which  you  are  about  to  vote  ?  '  exclaimed  the  colored  man. 

"  '  No,'  said  he  '  I  can't  read  at  all.' 

"  '  Well,'  said  the  colored  man,  '  this  ballot  means  that  you  are 
in  favor  of  the  fifteenth  amendment  giving  equal  franchise  to  both 
white  and  colored  citizens.' 

"  '  It  means  to  let  the  nigger  vote,  does  it  ?  ' 

«  «  Yes  sir.' 

"  '  Then  I  don't  want  it.     Niggers  don't  know  enough  to  vote!  '  " 

Of  late  years  Mr.  Nasby  did  all  of  his  writing  on  a  type-writer 
which  he  took  with  him  on  the  cars.  While  the  train  was  going 
forty  miles  an  hour  he  would  write  those  cross-road  letters  which 
have  made  him  famous.  One  day  I  wrote  to  him  for  his  autograph, 
for  Sam  Cox,  who  wanted  it  to  sell  at  a  fair.  Mr.  Cox  screamed 
with  laughter  when  the  autograph  came  written  by  a  type-writer  ! 

Our  engraver  reproduces  it  infac  simile. 

TEbe  ZEolefco 


LANOOTJ:— 

ENCLOSED  FIRD  UT  AOTDG1WP«R, 

I    WAS  MINDED  TO  WHITE  IT     WITH  MY  MACHINE. 
IQUE     THOUSANDS  OF  YEARS  HEHCE  IT  WILL  HAVE  A  VALUE. 

WI  EH  INS  YOU  SUCCESS,    I    AM 
TRULY, 

D.    R.    LOCKE, 

Mr.  Locke  meant  this  as  a  joke,  for  in  a  day  or  two  came  his 
real  autograph,  the  one  attached  to  his  picture,  and  this  note  : 

Dear  EH:  My  father's  nom  deplume  I  hardly  think  has  any  particular  significance 
The  word  "  Nasby"  was  coined  probably  from  a  remembrance  of  the  battle  of  Naseby. 
About  the  time  the  Nasby  letters  were  commenced  in  the  Toledo  Blade,  the  petroleum 
excitement  was  raging  in  Pennsylvania,  and  Vesuvius  was  used  for  euphony.  Father 
never  gave  any  other  explanation  of  this  pseudonym  than  the  above. 

ROBINSON  LOCKE. 

The  best  monument  that  Mr.  Locke's  sons  can  rear  to  their  dis- 
tinguished father  is  to  foster  the  great  newspaper  which  he  estab- 
lished, and  they  are  doing  it. 


100  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"When  asked  about  Lincoln's  love  for  Nasby,  the  senator  said  : 

"  I  once  called  on  the  President  late  in  the  evening  of  March  17, 
1865.  We  had  a  long  talk  in  his  private  office,  at  the  White  House, 
which  lasted  till  midnight.  As  I  rose  to  go  he  said : 

" '  Come  to  me  when  I  open  shop  in  the  morning ;  I  will  have 
the  order  written,  and  you  shall  see  it.' 

" '  When  do  you  open  shop  ? '  I  asked. 

"  'At  nine  o'clock,'  he  replied. 

"  At  the  hour  named  I  was  in  the  same  room  that  I  had  so 
recently  left.  Yery  soon  the  President  entered,  stepping  quickly 
with  the  promised  order  in  his  hands,  which  he  at  once  read  to  me. 
It  was  to  disapprove  and  annul  the  judgment  and  sentence  of  a 
court  martial  in  a  case  that  had  excited  much  feeling.  While  I  was 
making  an  abstract  of  the  order  for  communication  by  telegraph  to 
the  anxious  parties,  he  broke  into  quotation  from  Nasby.  Finding 
me  less  at  home  than  himself  with  his  favorite  humorist,  he  said 
pleasantly. 

"  'I  must  initiate  you,'  and  then  repeated  with  enthusiasm  the 
message  he  had  sent  to  Mr.  Nasby :  *  For  the  genius  to  write  these 
things  I  would  gladly  give  up  my  office.' 

"  A  few  weeksafter  this,  April  14th,"  said  Mr.  Sumner,  ''the  bul- 
let from  the  pistol  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth  took  the  great  President's 
life." 

NASBY'S  LECTURE 

ON 

THE  WOMAN  QUESTION. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — I  adore  woman.  I  recognize  the  importance 
of  the  sex,  and  lay  at  its  feet  my  humble  tribute.  But  for  woman,  where 
would  we  have  been?  Who  in  our  infancy  washed  our  faces,  fed  us 
soothing  syrup  and  taught  us  "  How  doth  the  little  busy  bee?" 

Woman ! 

To  whom  did  we  give  red  apples  in  our  boyhood?  For  whom  did  we 
part  our  hair  behind,  and  wear  No.  7  boots  when  No.  10's  would  have 
been  more  comfortable?  [Laughter.]  And  with  whom  did  we  sit  up 
nights,  in  the  hair-oil  period  of  our  existence?  And,  finally,  whom  did 
we  marry?  But  for  woman  what  would  the  novelists  have  done?  What 
would  have  become  of  Sylvanus  Cobb,  Jr. ,  if  he  had  had  no  women  to 
make  heroines  of  ?  And  without  Sylvanus  Cobb,  Bonner  could  not  have 
made  T7ie  Ledger  a  success;  Everett  would  be  remembered  not  as  the 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASBY.  101 

man  who  wrote  for  TJie  Ledger,  but  merely  as  an  orator  and  statesman; 
Beecher  never  would  have  written  "  Norwood,"  and  Dexter  might  to-day 
have  been  chafing  under  the  collar  in  a  dray!  But  for  woman  George 
Washington  would  not  have  been  the  father  of  his  country;  the  Sunday- 
school  teachers  would  have  been  short  the  affecting  story  of  the  little 
hatchet  and  the  cherry  tree,  and  half  the  babies  in  the  country  would 
have  been  named  after  some  one  else.  Possibly  they  might  have  all  been 
Smiths.  But  for  woman  Andrew  Johnson  never  would  have  been,  and 
future  generations  would  have  lost  the  most  awful  example  of  depravity 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  I  adore  woman,  but  I  want  her  to  keep  her 
place.  I  don't  want  woman  to  be  the  coming  man.  [Laughter.] 

In  considering  this  woman  question,  I  occupy  the  conservative  stand- 
point. I  find  that,  from  the  most  gray-headed  times,  one-half  of  the 
human  race  have  lived  and  moved  by  the  grace  and  favor  of  the  other 
half.  From  the  beginning  woman  has  occupied  a  dependent  position, 
and  has  been  only  what  man  has  made  her.  The  Turks,  logical  fellows, 
denied  her  a  soul,  and  made  of  her  an  object  of  barter  and  sale;  the  Amer- 
ican Indians  made  of  her  a  beast  of  burden.  In  America,  since  we 
extended  the  area  of  civilization  by  butchering  the  Indians,  we  have 
copied  both.  [Laughter.]  In  the  higher  walks  of  life  she  is  a  toy  to  be 
played  with,  and  is  bought  and  sold;  in  the  lower  strata  she  bears  the 
burdens  and  does  the  drudgery  of  servants,  without  the  ameliorating 
conditions  that  make  other  servitude  tolerable  and  possible  to  be  borne. 
But  I  am  sure  that  her  present  condition  is  her  proper  condition,  for  it 
always  has  been  so. 

Adam  subjugated  Eve  at  the  beginning,  and,  following  precedent, 
Cain  subjugated  his  wife.  Mrs.  Cain,  not  being  an  original  thinker, 
imitated  her  mother-in-law,  who  probably  lived  with  them,  and  made  it 
warm  for  her,  [Laughter]  as  is  the  custom  of  mothers-in-law,  and  the 
precedent  being  established,  it  has  been  so  ever  since.  I  reject  with  scorn 
the  idea  advanced  by  a  schoolmistress,  that  Eve  was  an  inferior  woman, 
and  therefore  submitted;  and  that  Eve's  being  an  inferior  woman  was  no 
reason  for  classing  all  her  daughters  with  her. 

"Had  I  been  Eve/'  she  remarked,  "I  would  have  made  a  different 
precedent ! "  and  I  rather  think  she  would. 

The  first  record  we  have  of  man  and  woman  is  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis.  "  So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image.  And  he  made  man 
of  the  dust  of  the  earth."  In  the  second  chapter  we  have  a  record  of  the 
making  of  woman  by  taking  a  rib  from  man.  Man,  it  will  be  observed, 
was  created  first,  showing  conclusively  that  he  was  intended  to  take  pre- 
cedence of  woman.  This  woman,  to  whom  I  referred  a  moment  since, 


102  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

denied  the  correctness  of  the  conclusion.  Man  was  made  first,  woman 
afterward  —  isn't  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  last  creation  was  the 
best?  "If  there  is  any  thing  in  being  first,"  she  continued,  "man  must 
acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  the  goose,  for  the  fowl  is  first  mentioned." 
[Laughter.]  And  she  argued  further:  "Man  was  made  of  the  dust  of 
the  earth,  the  lowest  form  of  matter;  woman  was  made  of  man,  the  high- 
est and  most  perfect  form.  It  is  clear  that  woman  must  be  the  better, 
for  she  was  made  of  better, material!"  [Laughter.]  But,  of  course,  I 
look  upon  this  as  mere  sophistry. 

I  attempted  to  trace  the  relative  condition  of  the  sexes  from  the  cre- 
ation down  to  the  fall  of  man,  but  the  Bible  is  silent  upon  the  subject, 
and  the  files  of  the  newspapers  of  the  period  were  doubtless  all  destroyed 
in  the  flood.  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  that  any  have  been  preserved 
in  the  public  libraries  of  the  country.  But  it  is  to  be  presumed  that 
they  lived  upon  precisely  the  terms  that  they  do  now.  I  shall  assume 
that  Eve  was  merely  the  domestic  servant  of  Adam  —  that  she  rose  in  the 
morning,  careful  not  to  disturb  his  slumbers  —  that  she  cooked  his  break- 
fast, called  him  affectionately  when  it  was  quite  ready,  waited  upon  him 
at  table,  arranged  his  shaving  implements  ready  to  his  hand,  saw  him 
properly  dressed  —  after  which  she  washed  the  dishes,  and  amused  her- 
self darning  his  torn  fig  leaves  till  the  time  arrived  to  prepare  dinner,  and 
so  on  till  nightfall,  after  which  time  she  improved  her  mind,  and,  before 
Master  Cain  was  born,  slept.  She  did  not  even  keep  a  kitchen  girl;  at 
least  I  find  no  record  of  any  thing  of  the  kind.  Probably  at  that  time 
the  emigration  from  Ireland  was  setting  in  other  directions,  and  help 
was  hard  to  get.  That  she  was  a  good  wife,  and  a  contented  one,  I  do 
not  doubt.  I  find  no  record  in  the  Scriptures  of  her  throwing  tea-pots, 
or  chairs,  or  brooms,  or  any  thing  of  the  sort  at  Adam's  head,  nor  is  it 
put  down  that  at  any  time  she  intimated  a  desire  for  a  divorce,  which 
proves  conclusively  that  the  Garden  of  Eden  was  not  located  in  the  State 
of  Indiana.  But  I  judge  that  Adam  was  a  good,  kind  husband.  He  did 
not  go  to  his  club  at  night,  for,  as  near  as  I  can  learn,  he  had  no  club. 
His  son  Cain  had  one,  however,  [Laughter]  as  his  other  son,  Abel,  dis- 
covered. 

I  am  certain  that  he  did  not  insist  on  smoking  cigars  in  the  back  par- 
lor, making  the  curtains  smell.  I  do  not  know  that  these  things  are  so; 
but  as  mankind  does  to-day  what  mankind  did  centuries  ago,  it  is  reason- 
able to  assume,  when  we  don't  know  any  thing  about  it,  that  what  is  done 
to-day  was  done  centuries  ago.  The  bulk  of  mankind  have  learned  noth- 
ing since  Adam's  time.  Eve's  duties  were  not  as  trying  as  those  piled 
upon  her  daughters.  As  compared  with  the  fashionable  women  of  to-day, 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASBT.  103 

her  lot  was  less  perplexing.  Society  was  not  so  exacting  in  her  time. 
She  had  no  calls  to  make,  or  parties  to  give  and  attend.  Her  toilet  was 
much  simpler,  and  did  not  require  the  entire  resources  of  her  intellect. 
If  her  situation  is  compared  with  that  of  the  wives  of  poorer  men,  it  will 
be  found  to  be  better.  They  had  no  meat  to  dress,  flour  to  knead,  or 
bread  to  bake.  The  trees  bore  fruit,  which  were  to  be  had  for  the  pick- 
ing; and  as  they  were  strict  vegetarians,  it  sufficed.  I  have  wished  that 
her  taste  in  fruit  had  been  more  easily  satisfied,  for  her  unfortunate  crav- 
ing after  one  particular  variety  brought  me  into  trouble.  But  I  have  for- 
given her.  I  shall  never  reproach  her  for  this.  She  is  dead,  alas!  and 
let  her  one  fault  lie  undisturbed  in  the  grave  with  her.  It  is  well  that 
Eve  died  when  she  did.  It  would  have  broken  her  heart  had  she  lived 
to  see  how  the  most  of  her  family  turned  out.  [Laughter.] 

I  insist,  however,  that  what  labor  of  a  domestic  nature  was  done,  she 
did.  She  picked  the  fruit,  pared  it  and  stewed  it,  like  a  dutiful  wife. 
She  was  no  strong-minded  female,  and  never  got  out  of  her  legitimate 
sphere.  I  have  searched  the  book  of  Genesis  faithfully,  and  I  defy  any 
one  to  find  it  recorded  therein  that  Eve  ever  made  a  public  speech,  or 
expressed  any  desire  to  preach,  practice  law  or  medicine,  or  sit  in  the 
legislature  of  her  native  State.  What  a  crushing,  withering,  scathing, 
blasting  rebuke  to  the  Dickinsons,  Stantons,  Blackwells  and  Anthonys 
of  this  degenerate  day. 

I  find  in  the  Bible  many  arguments  against  the  equality  of  woman 
with  man  in  point  of  intellectual  power.  The  serpent  tempted  Eve,  not 
Adam.  Why  did  he  select  Eve  ?  Ah,  why,  indeed  !  Whatever  else 
may  be  said  of  Satan,  no  one  will,  I  think,  question  his  ability!  I  do  not 
stand  here  as  his  champion  or  even  apologist ;  in  fact,  I  am  willing  to 
admit  that  in  many  instances  his  behavior  has  been  ungentlemanly,  but 
no  one  will  deny  that  he  is  a  most  consummate  judge  of  character,  and 
that  he  has  never  failed  to  select  for  his  work  the  most  fitting  instru- 
ments. When  America  was  to  be  betrayed  the  first  time,  Satan  selected 
Arnold;  and  when  the  second  betrayal  of  the  Republic  was  determined 
upon,  he  knew  where  Jefferson  Davis,  Floyd  and  Buchanan  lived. 
When  there  is  a  fearful  piece  of  jobbery  to  get  through  Congress  or  the 
New  York  legislature,  he  never  fails  to  select  precisely  the  right  persons 
for  the  villainy.  Possibly  he  is  not  entitled  to  credit  for  discrimination 
in  these  last-mentioned  bodies,  for  he  could  not  very  well  go  wrong.  He 
•could  find  instruments  in  either,  with  both  hands  tied  and  blindfolded. 
But  this  is  a  digression.  Why  did  Satan  select  Eve  ?  Because  he  knew 
that  Eve,  the  woman,  was  weaker  than  Adam  the  man,  and  therefore 
best  for  his  purpose.  This  reckless  female  insisted  that  Satan  approached 


104  KI^GS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Eve  first,  because  he  knew  that  woman  was  not  afraid  of  the  devil; 
[Laughter]  but  I  reject  this  explanation  as  irrelevant. 

At  this  point,  however,  we  must  stop.  Should  we  go  on,  we  would 
find  that  Eve,  the  weak  woman,  tempted  Adam,  the  strong  man,  with 
distinguished  success,  which  would  leave  us  in  this  predicament:  Satan, 
stronger  than  Eve,  tempted  her  to  indulge  in  fruit.  Eve's  weakness 
was  demonstrated  by  her  falling  a  victim  to  temptation.  Eve  tempted 
Adam;  Adam  yielded  to  Eve;  therefore,  if  Eve  was  weak  in  yielding  to 
Satan,  how  much  weaker  was  Adam  in  yielding  to  Eve  ?  If  Satan  had 
been  considerate  of  the  feelings  of  the  conservatives,  his  best  friends,  by  the 
way,  in  all  ages,  he  would  have  tempted  Adam  first  and  caused  Adam  to 
tempt  Eve.  This  would  have  afforded  us  the  edifying  spectacle  of  the 
strong  man  leading  the  weak  woman,  which  would  be  in  accordance 
with  our  idea  of  the  eternal  fitness  of  things.  But  now  that  I  look  at  it 
again,  this  wouldn't  do  ;  for  it  is  necessary  to  our  argument  that  the 
woman  should  be  tempted  first,  to  prove  that  she  was  the  weaker  of  the 
two.  I  shall  dismiss  Adam  and  Eve  with  the  remark,  that,  notwith- 
standing the  respect  one  ought  always  to  feel  for  his  ancestors,  those 
whose  blood  is  the  same  as  that  running  in  his  veins,  I  can  not  but  say 
that  Adam's  conduct  in  this  transaction  was  weak.  If  Adam's  spirit 
is  listening  to  me  to-night,  I  can't  help  it.  I  presume  he  will 
feel  badly  to  hear  me  say  it,  but  truth  is  truth.  Instead  of  say- 
ing boldly,  "  I  ate  ! "  he  attempted  to  clear  his  skirts  by  skulking  behind 
those  of  his  wife.  tf  The  woman  thou  gavest  me  tempted  me  and  I  did 
eat,"  he  said,  which  was  paltry.  Had  Adam  been  stronger  minded,  he 
would  have  refused  the  tempting  bite,  and  then  only  woman  would  have 
been  amenable  to  the  death  penalty  that  followed.  This  would  have 
killed  the  legal  profession  in  Chicago,  for  what  man  who  was  to  live 
forever  would  get  a  divorce  from  his  wife  who  could  live  but  eighty  or 
ninety  years  at  best  ? 

As  a  conservative,  I  must  s'ay  that  woman  is  the  inferior  of  man. 
This  fact  is  recognized  in  all  civilized  countries  and  in  most  heathen 
nations.  The  Hindoos,  it  is  true,  in  one  of  their  practices,  acknowledge 
a  superiority  of  woman.  In  Hindostan,  when  a  man  dies,  his  widow  is 
immediately  burned,  that  she  may  follow  him — an  acknowledgment 
that  woman  is  as  necessary  to  him  in  the  next  world  as  in  this.  [Laugh- 
ter. ]  As  men  are  never  burned  when  their  wives  die,  it  may  be  taken 
as  admitting  that  women  are  abundantly  able  to  get  along  alone. 
[Laiighter.]  Or,  perchance,  it  may  be  because  men  in  that  country,  as  in 
this,  can  get  new  wives  easier  than  women  can  get  new  husbands.  The 


PETROLEUM  V.  ATASBY.  105 

exit  from  this  world  by  fire  was  probably  chosen,  that  the  wife  might  in 
some  measure  be  fitted  for  the  climate  in  which  she  might  expect  to  find 
her  husband. 

The  inferiority  of  the  sex  is  easy  of  demonstration.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  mother  forms  the  character  of  the  man  so  long,  that  the  propo- 
sition has  become  axiomatic.  If  this  be  true,  we  can  crush  those  who 
prate  of  the  equality  of  women,  by  holding  up  to  the  gaze  of  the  world 
the  inferior  men  she  has  formed.  Look  at  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States.  Look  at  Garret  Davis.  By  their  works  ye  shall  know  them. 
It  won't  do  to  cite  me  to  the  mothers  of  the  good  and  great  men  whose 
names  adorn  American  history.  The  number  is  too  small.  There's 
George  Washington,  Wendell  Phillips,  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  one  other 
whose  name  all  the  tortures  of  the  Inquisition  could  not  make  me 
reveal.  Modesty  forbids  me.  [Laughter.] 

Those  who  clamor  for  the  extension  of  the  sphere  of  woman,  point  to 
the  names  of  women  illustrious  in  history,  sacred  and  profane.  I  find, 
to  my  discomfiture,  that  some  of  the  sex  really  excelled  the  sterner. 
There  was  Mrs.  Jezebel  Ahab,  for  instance.  Ahab  wanted  the  vineyard 
of  Naboth,  which  Naboth  refused  to  sell,  owing  to  a  prejudice  he  had 
against  disposing  of  real  estate  which  he  had  inherited.  Ahab,  who 
was  not  an  ornament  to  his  sex,  went  home  sick  and  took  to  his  bed  like 
a  girl,  and  turned  away  his  face,  and  would  eat  no  bread.  Mrs.  Ahab 
was  made  of  sterner  stuff. 

"Arise,"  said  Mrs.  A.;  "be  merry.  I  will  give  thee  the  vineyard  of 
Kaboth  the  Jezreelite." 

And  she  did  it.  She  trapped  him  as  neatly  as  David  did  Uriah.  She 
suborned  two  sons  of  Belial  (by  the  way  Belial  has  had  a  large  family, 
and  the  stock  has  not  run  out  yet)  to  bear  false  witness  against  him, 
saying  that  he  had  blasphemed  God  and  the  king,  and  they  took  him 
out  and  stoned  him.  Ahab  got  the  vineyard.  It  is  true  this  lady  came 
to  a  miserable  end,  but  she  acomplished  what  she  desired. 

Miss  Pocahontas  has  been  held  up  as  a  sample  of  female  strength  of 
mind.  I  don't  deny  that  she  displayed  some  decision  of  character,  but 
it  was  fearfully  unwomanly.  When  her  father  raised  his  club  over  the 
head  of  the  astonished  Smith,  instead  of  rushing  in  so  recklessly,  she 
should  have  said,  "Please  pa,  don't."  Her  recklessness  was  immense. 
Suppose  Pocahontas  had  been  unable  to  stay  the  blow,  where  would  our 
Miss  have  been  then? — she  never  would  have  married  Rolfe;  what  would 
the  first  families  of  Virginia  have  done  for  somebody  to  descend  from? 
When  we  remember  that  all  the  people  of  that  proud  State  claim  this 
woman  as  their  mother,  we  shudder,  or  ought  to,  when  we  contemplate 
the  possible  consequences  of  her  rashness. 


106  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Delilah,  whose  other  name  is  not  recorded,  overcame  Samson,  the 
first  and  most  successful  conundrum  maker  of  his  age,  and  Jael,  it  will 
be  remembered,  silenced  Sisera  forever.  Joan  of  Arc  conquered  the 
English  after  the  French  leaders  failed,  and  Elizabeth  of  England  was 
the  greatest  of  English  rulers.  I  acknowledge  all  this,  but  then  these 
women  had  opportunities  beyond  those  of  women  in  general.  They  had 
-as  many  opportunities  as  the  men  of  their  respective  periods  had,  and 
consequently, if  they  were  mentally  as  great  as  men — no,  that  isn't  what  I 
mean  to  say — if  the  men  of  the  period  were  no  greater,  mentally,  than  they 
— no — if  the  circumstances  which  surrounded  them  gave  them  oppor- 
tunities, which  being  mentally  as  great  as  men — I  have  this  thing  mixed 
lip  somehow,  and  it  don't  result  as  it  ought  to — but  this  is  true;  Delilah, 
Elizabeth,  Joan  of  Arc— all  and  singular,  unsexed  themselves,  and  did 
things  unbecoming  ladies  of  refinement  and  cultivation.  Joan's  place 
was  spinning  flax  in  her  father's  hut,  and  not  at  the  head  of  armies.  Had 
she  followed  the  natural  mode  of  feminine  life,  she  would  not  have  been 
burned  at  the  stake,  and  the  English  would  not  have  been  interrupted  in 
their  work  of  reducing  France  to  the  condition  of  an  English  province. 
Had  I  lived  in  France,  I  should  have  said,  "  Down  with  her!  Let  us 
perish  under  a  man  rather  than  be  saved  by  a  woman!  "  Joan  should 
have  been  ashamed  of  herself  —  I  blush  for  her.  Had  Elizabeth  been 
content  to  entrust  her  kingdom  to  the  hands  of  her  cabinet,  she  Avould 
have  left  it  in  the  happy  condition  of  the  United  States  at  the  close  of 
Buchanan's  administration,  but  she  would  have  been  true  to  our  idea  of 
the  womanly  life. 

There  is,  in  the  feminine  character,  a  decisive  promptness  which  we 
must  admire.  Eve  ate  the  apple  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  and  the 
characteristic  is  more  beautifully  illustrated  in  the  touching  and  well 
reported  account  of  the  courtship  and  marriage  of  Rebekah  with  Isaac. 
Abraham's  servant  was  sent,  it  will  be  remembered,  by  such  of  you  as 
have  read  the  Bible,  and  I  presume  there  are  those  here  who  have 
[Laughter],  to  negotiate  for  a  wife  for  young  Isaac  among  his  kindred, 
as  he  had  as  intense  a  'prejudice  against  the  Canaanites  as  have  the 
democracy  of  the  present  day.  This  servant,  whom  we  will  call  Smith, 
as  his  name,  unfortunately,  has  not  been  preserved,  and  Laban,  the 
brother  of  Rebekah,  had  almost  arranged  the  matter.  The  servant 
desired  to  return  with  the  young  lady  at  once,  but  the  mother  and 
brother  desired  her  to  remain  some  days,  contrary  to  modern  practice, 
in  that  the  parents  now  desire  the  young  lady  to  get  settled  in  her  own 
house  and  off  their  hands  as  soon  as  possible.  The  servant  insisted, 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASBY.  107 

whereupon  the  mother  remarked,  "We  will  call  the  damsel  and  inquire 
at  her  mouth."  They  called  Eebekah  and  asked,  "Wilt  thou  go  with 
this  man?" 

It  is  related  of  a  damsel  in  Pike  county,  Missouri,  who  was  being 
wedded  to  the  man  whose  choice  she  was,  when  the  minister  officiating 
asked  the  usual  question,  "  Wilt  thou  have  this  man  to  be  thy  wedded 
husband?"  that,  dropping  her  long  eyelashes,  she  promptly  answered, 
"  You  bet !"  Even  so  with  Eebekah.  She  neither  fainted,  simpered 
nor  blushed.  She  did  not  say  that  she  hadn't  a  thing  fit  to  put  on — that 
her  clothes  weren't  home  from  the  dressmaker's.  No!  Using  the  Hebrew 
equivalent  for  "  you  bet!" — for  Eebekah  was  a  smart  girl,  and  young  as 
she  was,  had  learned  to  speak  Hebrew — when  the  question  was  put  to 
her,  "  Wilt  thou  go  with  this  man?"  she  answered,  "I  will, " — and  she 
went.  I  don't  know  that  this  proves  any  thing,  unless  it  be  that  women 
of  that  day  took  as  great  risks  for  husbands  as  they  do  now.  Miss  Ee- 
bekah had  scarcely  been  introduced  to  her  future  husband.  It  might  be 
interesting  to  trace  the  history  of  this  woman,  but  I  have  hardly  the 
time.  I  will  say,  however,  that  she  was  a  mistress  of  duplicity.  To  get 
the  blessing  of  her  husband  for  her  pet  son  Jacob,  she  put  false  hair 
upon  him  to  deceive  the  old  gentleman,  and  did  it.  From  that  day  to 
this,  women  in  every  place  but  this,  have  deceived  men,  young  as  well 
as  old,  with  false  hair. 

The  feminine  habit  of  thought  is  not  such  as  to  entitle  them  to  privi- 
leges beyond  those  they  now  enjoy.  No  woman  was  ever  a  drayman;  no 
woman  ever  carried  a  hod;  no  woman  ever  drove  horses  on  the  canals  of 
the  country;  and  what  is  more  to  the  point,  no  woman  ever  shoveled  a 
single  wheel-barrow  of  earth  on  the  public  works.  I  triumphantly  ask, 
Did  any  woman  assist  in  preparing  the  road  bed  of  the  Pacific  Eailway? 
•did  any  woman  drive  a  spike  in  that  magnificent  structure?  No  woman 
is  employed  in  the  forging  department  of  any  shop  in  which  is  made  the 
locomotives  that  climb  the  Sierra  Nevada,  whose  head-lights  beam  on 
the  valleys  of  the  Pacific  coast — the  suns  of  our  commercial  system. 

Just  as  I  had  this  arranged  in  my  mind,  this  disturbing  female,  of 
whom  I  have  spoken  once  or  twice,  asked  me  whether  carrying  hods, 
•driving  horses  on  canals,  or  shoveling  dirt  on  railways,  had  been,  in  the 
past,  considered  the  best  training  for  intelligent  participation  in  political 
privileges?  She  remarked,  that,  judging  from  the  character  of  most  of 
the  legislation  of  which  she  had  knowledge,  these  had  been  the  schools 
in  which  legislators  had  been  trained,  but  she  hardly  believed  that  I 
would  acknowledge  it.  "  Make  these  the  qualifications/'  said  she,  "and 
where  would  you  be,  my  friend,  who  have  neither  driven  a  spike,  driven 
a  horse,  or  shoveled  dirt?  It  would  cut  out  all  of  my  class  (she  was  a 


108  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

teacher) — indeed  I  know  of  but  two  women  in  America  who  would  be 
admitted.  The  two  women  I  refer  to  fought  a  prize  fight  in  Connecti- 
cut recently,  observing  all  the  rules  of  the  English  ring,  and  they  dis- 
played as  much  gameness  as  was  ever  shown  by  that  muscular  lawmaker, 
the  Hon.  John  Morrissey.  These  women  ought  to  vote,  and  if,  in  the 
good  time  coming,  women  distribute  honors  as  men  have  done,  they 
may  go  to  Congress." 

I  answered,  that  these  classes  had  always  voted,  and  therefore  it  was 
right  that  they  should  always  vote. 

"Certainly  they  have,"  returned  she,  "and,  as  I  have  heard  them 
addressed  a  score  of  times  as  the  embodied  virtue,  honesty  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  country,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  must  be 
something  in  the  labor  they  do  which  fits  them  peculiarly  for  the  duties 
of  law-making." 

My  friend  is  learned.  She  has  a  tolerable  knowledge  of  Greek,  is  an 
excellent  Latin  scholar,  and,  as  she  has  read  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  she  excels  in  political  lore  the  great  majority  of  our  repre- 
sentatives in  Congress.  But,  nevertheless,  I  protest  against  her  voting 
for  several  reasons. 

1.  She  can  not  sing  bass  !     Her  voice,  as  Dr.  Busline!!  justly  observes 
in  his  blessed  book,  is  pitched  higher  than  the  male  voice,  which  indi- 
cates feminine  weakness  of  mind. 

2.  Her  form  is  graceful  rather  than  strong. 

3.  She  delights  in  millinery  goods. 

4.  She  can't  grow  whiskers. 

In  all  of  these  points  nature  has  made  a  distinction  between  the  sexes 
which  can  not  be  overlooked. 

To  all  of  these  she  pleaded  guilty.  She  confessed  that  she  had  not  the 
strength  necessary  to  the  splitting  of  rails;  she  confessed  that  she  could 
neither  grow  a  beard  nor  sing  bass.  She  wished  she  could  grow  a  beard, 
as  she  knew  so  many  men  whose  only  title  to  intellect  was  their  whiskers. 
But  she  said  she  took  courage  when  she  observed  that  the  same  disparity 
was  noticeable  in  men.  Within  the  range  of  her  acquaintance  she  knew 
men  who  had  struggled  with  mustaches  with  a  perseverance  worthy  of  a 
better  cause,  and  whose  existence  had  been  blighted  by  the  consciousness 
that  they  could  not.  Life  was  to  them,  in  consequence,  a  failure.  Others 
she  knew  who  had  no  more  strength  than  a  girl,  and  others  whose  voices 
were  pitched  in  a  childish  treble.  If  beards,  heavy  voices  and  physical 
strength  were  the  qualifications  for  the  ballot,  she  would  at  once  betake 
herself  to  razors,  hair  iuvigor^tors,  and  gymnasiums.  She  went  on  thus: 

"In  many  respects,"  she  said,  "the  sexes  are  alike.  Both  are 
encumbered  with  stomachs  and  heads,  and  both  have  bodies  to  clothe. 


PETROLEUM  V.   NASBY.  10. • 

So  far  as  physical  existence  is  concerned  they  are  very  like.  Both  are 
affected  by  laws  made  and  enacted,  and  both  are  popularly  supposed  to 
have  minds  capable  of  weighing  the  effect  of  laws.  How,  thrust  into  the 
world  as  I  am,  with  a  stomach  to  fill  and  limbs  to  clothe,  with  both 
hands  tied,  am  I  to  live,  to  say  nothing  of  fulfilling  any  other  end?  " 

""Woman,"  I  replied,  "is  man's  angel." 

"  Stuff  and  nonsense,"  was  her  impolite  reply.  "  I  am  no  angel.  I 
am  a  woman.  Angels,  according  to  our  idea  of  angels,  have  no  use  for 
clothing.  Either  their  wings  are  enough  to  cover  their  bodies,  or  they 
are  so  constituted  as  not  to  be  affected  by  heat  or  cold.  Neither  do  they 
require  food.  I  can  not  imagine  a  feminine  angel  with  hoop  skirts, 
Grecian  bend,  gaiters  and  bonnet;  or  a  masculine  angel  in  tight  panta- 
loons, with  a  cane  and  silk  hat.  Angels  do  not  cook  dinners,  but  women 
do.  Why  do  you  say  angels  to  us?  It  creates  angel  tastes,  without  the 
possibility  of  their  ever  satisfying  those  tastes.  The  bird  was  made  to 
soar  in  the  upper  air,  and  was,  therefore,  provided  with  hollow  bones, 
wings,  etc.  Imagine  an  elephant  or  a  rhinoceros  possessed  with  a  long- 
ing to  soar  into  the  infinite  ethereal.  Could  an  elephant,  with  his 
physical  structure,  be  possessed  with  such  a  longing,  the  elephant  would 
be  miserable,  because  he  could  not.  He  would  be  as  miserable  as  Jay 
Gould  is,  with  an  ungobbled  railroad;  as  Bonner  would  be  if  Dexter  were 
the  property  of  another  man;  and  as  James  G.  Blaine  is  with  the  presi- 
dency before  him.  It  would  be  well  enough  to  make  angels  of  us,  if  you 
could  keep  us  in  a  semi-angelic  state;  but  the  few  thus  kept  only  make 
the  misery  of  those  not  so  fortunate  the  more  intense.  No;  treat  us 
rather  as  human  beings,  with  all  the  appetites,  wants  and  necessities  of 
human  beings,  for  we  are  forced  to  provide  for  those  wants,  necessities 
and  appetites." 

I  acknowledge  the  correctness  of  her  position.  They  must  live;  not 
that  they  are  of  very  much  account  in  and  of  themselves,  but  that  the 
nobler  sex  may  be  perpetuated  to  adorn  and  bless  the  earth.  Without 
woman  it  would  take  less  than  a  century  to  wind  up  man,  and  then  what 
would  the  world  do?  This  difficulty  is  obviated  by  marriage.  All  that 
we  have  to  do  is  to  marry  each  man  to  one  woman,  and  demand  of  each 
man  that  he  care  for  and  cherish  one  woman,  and  the  difficulty  is  got 
along  with.  And  got  along  with,  too,  leaving  things  as  we  desire  them, 
namely,  with  the  woman  dependent  upon  the  man.  We  proceed  upon 
the  proposition  that  there  are  just  as  many  men  as  there  are  women  in 
the  world;  that  all  men  will  do  their  duty  in  this  particular,  and  at  the 
right  time;  that  every  Jack  will  get  precisely  the  right  Jill,  and  that 
every  Jill  will  be  not  only  willing,  but  anxious,  to  take  the  Jack  the 
Lord  sends  her,  asking  no  questions. 


110  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

If  there  be  one  woman  more  than  there  are  men,  it's  bad  for  that 
woman.  I  don't  know  what  she  can  do,  unless  she  makes  shirts  for  the  odd 
man,  at  twelve  and  a  half  cents  each,  and  lives  gorgeously  on  the  proceeds 
of  her  toil.  If  one  man  concludes  that  he  won't  marry  at  all,  it's  bad 
for  another  woman,  unless  some  man's  wife  dies  and  he  marries  again. 
That  might  equalize  it,  but  for  two  reasons:  It  compels  the  woman  to 
wait  for  a  husband  until  she  possibly  concludes  it  isn't  worth  while  ;  and 
furthermore,  husbands  die  as  fast  as  wives,  which  brings  a  new  element 
into  the  field — widows ;  and  pray  what  chance  has  an  inexperienced  man 
against  a  widow  determined  upon  a  second  husband? 

I  admit,  that  if  there  were  as  many  men  as  women,  and  if  they  should 
all  marry,  and  the  matter  be  all  properly  fixed  up  at  the  start,  that  our 
present  system  is  still  bad  for  some  of  them.  She,  whose  husband  gets 
to  inventing  flying  machines,  or  running  for  office,  or  any  of  those  fool- 
ish or  discreditable  employments,  would  be  in  a  bad  situation.  Or,  when 
the  husband  neglects  his  duty,  and  refuses  to  care  for  his  wife  at  all;  or, 
to  state  a  case  which  no  one  ever  witnessed,  suppose  one  not  only  refuses 
to  care  for  his  wife,  but  refuses  to  care  for  himself !  Or,  suppose  he  con- 
tracts the  injudicious  habit  of  returning  to  his  home  at  night  in  a 
state  of  inebriation,  and  of  breaking  chairs  and  crockery  and  his  wife's 
head  and  other  trifles — in  such  a  case  I  must  admit  that  her  position 
would  be,  to  say  the  least,  unpleasant,  particularly  as  she  couldn't  help 
herself.  She  can't  very  well  take  care  of  herself;  for  to  make  woman 
purely  a  domestic  creature,  to  ornament  our  homes,  we  have  never  per- 
mitted them  to  think  for  themselves,  act  for  themselves,  or  do  for  them- 
selves. We  insist  upon  her  being  a  tender  ivy  clinging  to  the  rugged  oak;  if 
the  oak  she  clings  to  happens  to  be  bass-wood,  and  rotten  at  that,  it's 
not  our  fault.  In  these  cases  it's  her  duty  to  keep  on  clinging,  and  to 
finally  go  down  with  it  in  pious  resignation.  The  fault  is  in  the  system, 
and  as  those  who  made  the  system  are  dead,  and  as  six  thousand  brief 
summers  have  passed  over  their  tombs,  it  would  be  sacrilege  in  us  to  dis- 
turb it.  Customs,  like  cheese,  grow  mitey  as  they  grow  old. 

Let  every  woman  marry,  and  marry  as  soon  as  possible.  Then  she 
is  provided  for.  Then  the  ivy  has  her  oak.  Then  if  her  husband  is  a 
good  man,  a  kind  man,  an  honest  man,  a  sober  man,  a  truthful  man,  a 
liberal  man,  an  industrious  man,  a  managing  man,  and  if  he  has  a  good 
business  and  drives  it,  and  meets  with  no  misfortunes,  and  never  yields 
to  temptations,  why,  then  the  maid  promoted  to  be  his  wife  will  be  toler- 
ably certain  to,  at  least,  have  all  that  she  can  eat,  and  all  that  she  can 
wear,  as  long  as  he  continues  so. 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASB7.  Ill 

This  disturbing  woman,  of  whom  I  have  spoken  once  or  twice, 
remarked  that  she  did  not  care  for  those  who  were  married  happily,  but 
she  wanted  something  done  for  those  Avho  were  not  married  at  all,  and  those 
who  were  married  unfortunately.  She  liked  the  ivy  and  the  oak-tree  idea, 
but  she  wanted  the  ivy — woman — to  have  a  stiffening  of  intelligence  and 
opportunity,  that  she  might  stand  alone  in  case  the  oak  was  not  com- 
petent to  sustain  it.  She  demanded,  in  short,  employment  at  any  thing 
she  was  capable  of  doing,  and  pay  precisely  the  same  that  men  receive 
for  the  same  labor,  provided  she  does  it  as  well. 

This  is  a  clear  flying  in  the  face  of  Providence.  It  is  utterably  im- 
possible that  any  woman  can  do  any  work  as  well  as  men.  Nature  decreed 
it  otherwise.  Nature  did  not  give  them  the  strength.  Ask  the  clerks 
at  Washington,  whose  muscular  frames,  whose  hardened  sinews,  are  em- 
ployed at  from  twelve  hundred  to  three  thousand  dollars  per  annum,  in 
the  arduous  and  exhausting  labor  of  writing  in  books,  and  counting 
money,  and  cutting  out  extracts  from  newspapers,  and  endorsing  papers 
and  filing  them,  what  they  think  of  that?  Ask  the  brawny  young  men 
whose  manly  forms  are  wasted  away  in  the  wearing  occupation  of  meas- 
uring tape  and  exhibiting  silks,  what  they  think  of  it?  Are  women, 
frail  as  they  are,  to  fill  positions  in  the  government  offices?  I  ask  her 
sternly:  "Are  you  willing  to  go  to  war?  Did  you  shoulder  a  musket  in 
the  late  unpleasantness?" 

This  did  not  settle  her.  She  merely  asked  me  if  I  carried  a  musket 
in  the  late  war.  Certainly  I  did  not.  I  had  too  much  presence  of  mind 
to  volunteer.  Nor  did  the  majority  of  those  holding  official  position. 
Like  Job's  charger,  they  snuffed  the  battle  afar  off — some  hundreds  of 
miles  —  and  slew  the  haughty  Southron  on  the  stump,  or  by  substitute. 
But  there  is  this  difference:  we  could  have  gone,  while  women  could  not. 
And  it  is  better  that  it  is  so.  In  the  event  of  another  bloody  war,  one 
so  desperate  as  to  require  all  the  patriotism  of  the  country  to  show  itself, 
I  do  not  want  my  wife  to  go  to  the  tented  field,  even  though  she  have  the 
requisite  physical  strength.  No,  indeed!  I  want  her  to  stay  at  home 
—  with  me !  [Laughter.  ] 

In  the  matter  of  wages,  I  do  not  see  how  it  is  to  be  helped.  The 
woman  who  teaches  a  school,  receives,  if  she  has  thoroughly  mastered 
the  requirements  of  the  position,  say  six  hundred  dollars  per  year,  while 
a  man  occupying  the  same  position,  filling  it  with  equal  ability,  receives 
twice  that  amount,  and  possibly  three  times.  But  what  is  this  to  me?' 
As  a  man  of  business,  my  duty  to  myself  is  to  get  my  children  educated 
at  the  least  possible  expense.  As  there  are  but  very  few  things  women 
are  permitted  to  do,  and  as  for  every  vacant  place  there  are  a  hundred 


112  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

women  eager  for  it,  as  a  matter  of  course,  their  pay  is  brought  down  to  a 
Tery  fine  point.  As  I  said  some  minutes  ago,  if  the  men  born  into  the 
world  would  marry  at  twenty-one,  each  a  maiden  of  eighteen,  and  take 
care  of  her  properly,  and  never  get  drunk  or  sick,  or  any  thing  of  that 
inconvenient  sort,  and  both  would  be  taken  at  precisely  the  same  time 
with  consumption,  yellow  fever,  cholera,  or  any  one  of  those  cheerful 
ailments,  and  employ  the  same  physician,  that  they  might  go  out  of  the 
world  at  the  same  moment,  and  become  angels  with  wings  and  long  white 
robes,  it  would  be  well  enough.  The  men  would  then  take  care  of  the 
women,  except  those  who  marry  milliners,  in  which  case  the  women  take 
care  of  the  men,  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  as  the  one  depend- 
ent upon  somebody  else  is  taken  care  of.  But  it  don't  so  happen.  Men 
do  not  marry  as  they  ought  at  twenty-one;  they  put  it  off  to  twenty-five, 
thirty  or  forty,  and  many  of  them  are  wicked  enough  not  to  marry  at 
all,  and  of  those  who  do  marry  there  will  always  be  a  certain  per  cent, 
who  will  be  dissipated  or  worthless.  "What  then?  I  can't  deny  that 
there  will  be  women  left  out  in  the  cold.  There  are  those  who  don't 
marry,  and  those  who  can  not.  Possibly  the  number  thus  situated  would 
be  lessened  if  we  permitted  women  to  rush  in  and  seize  men,  and  marry 
them,  nolens  volens,  but  the  superior  animal  will  not  brook  that  famil- 
iarity. He  must  do  the  wooing  —  he  must  ask  the  woman  in  his  lordly 
way.  Compelled  to  wait  to  be  asked,  and  forced  to  marry  that  they  may 
have  the  wherewithal  to  eat  and  be  clothed,  very  many  of  them  take 
fearful  chances.  They  dare  not,  as  a  rule,  refuse  to  marry.  Man  must, 
as  the  superior  being,  have  the  choice  of  occupations,  and  it  is  a  singular 
fact  that,  superior  as  he  is  by  virtue  of  his  strength,  he  rushes  invariably 
to  the  occupations  that  least  require  strength,  and  which  women  might  fill 
to  advantage.  They  monopolize  all  the  occupations  —  the  married  man 
has  his  family  to  take  care  of  —  the  single  man  has  his  back  hair  to  sup- 
port; what  is  to  become  of  these  unfortunate  single  women — maids  and 
widows?  Live  they  must.  They  have  all  the  necessities  of  life  to  supply, 
and  nothing  to  supply  them  with.  "What  shall  they  do?  "Why,  work  of 
course.  But  they  say,  "We  are  willing  to  work,  but  we  must  have 
wages."  Granted.  But  how  shall  we  get  at  the  wages?  What  shall  be 
the  standard?  I  must  get  my  work  done  as  cheaply  as  possible.  Now, 
if  three  women  —  a  widow,  we  will  say,  with  five  children  to  support;  a 
girl  who  has  to  work  or  do  worse,  and  a  wife  with  an  invalid  husband  to 
feed,  clothe  and  find  medicine  for  —  if  these  three  come  to  my  door, 
clamoring  for  'the  love  of  God  for  something  to  do,  what  shall  I,  as  a 
prudent  man,  do  in  the  matter?  There  are  immutable  laws  governing 
all  these  things —  the  law  of  supply  and  demand.  Christ,  whose  mission 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASBT.  113 

was  with  the  poor,  made  other  laws,  but  Christ  is  not  allowed  to  have 
any  thing  to  do  with  business.  Selfishness  is  older  than  Christ,  and 
we  conservatives  stick  close  to  the  oldest.  What  do  I  do?  Why,  as  a 
man  of  business,  I  naturally  ascertain  which  of  the  three  is  burdened 
with  the  most  crushing  responsibilities  and  necessities.  I  ascertain  to  a 
mouthful  the  amount  of  food  necessary  to  keep  each,  and  then  the  one 
who  will  do  my  work  for  the  price  nearest  starvation  rates  gets  it  to  do. 
If  the  poor  girl  prefers  the  pittance  I  offer  her  to  a  life  of  shame,  she 
gets  it.  If  the  wife  is  willing  to  work  her  fingers  nearer  the  bone  than 
the  others,  rather  than  abandon  her  husband,  she  gets  it,  and,  speculat- 
ing on  the  love  the  mother  bears  her  children,  I  see  how  much  of  her 
life  the  widow  will  give  to  save  theirs,  and  decide  accordingly.  I  know 
very  well  that  these  poor  creatures  can  not  saw  wood,  wield  the  hammer, 
or  roll  barrels  on  the  docks.  I  know  that  custom  bars  them  out  of  many 
employments,  and  that  the  more  manly  vocations  of  handling  ribbons, 
manipulating  telegraphic  instruments,  etc.,  are  monopolized  by  men. 
Confined  as  they  are  to  a  few  vocations,  and  there  being  so  many  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  men  who  will  not  each  provide  for  one,  there  are 
necessarily  ten  applicants  for  every  vacancy,  and  there  being  more  virtue 
in  the  sex  than  the  world  has  ever  given  them  credit  for,  of  course  they 
accept,  not  what  their  labor  is  worth  to  me  and  the  world,  but  what  I 
and  the  world  choose  to  give  for  it.  It  is  bad,  I  grant,  but  it  is  the  fault  of 
the  system.  It  is  a  misfortune,  we  think,  that  there  are  so  many  women, 
and  we  weep  over  it.  I  am  willing  to  shed  any  amount  of  tears  over 
this  mistake  of  nature. 

But  women  are  themselves  to  blame  for  a  great  part  of  the  distress 
they  experience.  There  is  work  for  more  of  them,  if  they  would  only  do 
it.  The  kitchens  of  the  country  are  not  half  supplied  with  intelligent 
labor,  and  therein  is  a  refuge  for  all  women  in  distress. 

I  assert  that  nothing  but  foolish  pride  keeps  the  daughters  of  insol- 
vent wealth  out  of  kitchens,  where  they  may  have  happy  underground 
homes  and  three  dollars  per  week,  by  merely  doing  six  hours  per  day 
more  labor  than  hod-carriers  average. 

This  is  what  they  would  do  were  it  not  for  pride,  which  is  sinful. 
They  should  strip  the  jewels  off  their  fingers,  the  laces  off  their  shoul- 
ders; they  should  make  a  holocaust  of  their  music  and  drawings,  and, 
accepting  the  inevitable,  sink  with  dignity  to  the  washing  of  dishes,  the 
scrubbing  of  floors,  and  the  wash-tub.  This  their  brothers  do,  and  why 
haven't  they  their  strength  of  mind?  Young  men  delicately  nurtured 
and  reared  in  the  lap  of  luxury,  never  refuse  the  sacrifice  when  their 
papas  fail  in  business.  They  always  throw  to  the  winds  their  cigars; 
8 


114  KOTOS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

they  abjure  canes  and  gloves,  and  mount  drays,  and  shoulder  saw-bucks 
—  any  thing  for  an  honest  living.     I  never  saw  one  of  these  degenerate 
into  a  sponge  upon  society  rather  than  labor  with  his  hands!     Did  you? 
I  never  saw  one  of  this  class  get  to  be  a  faro  dealer,  a  billiard  marker,  a 
borrower  of  small  sums  of  money,  a  lunch-fiend,  a  confidence-man,  or 
any  thing  of  the  sort.     Not  they!     Giving  the  go-by  to  every  thing  in 
the  shape  of  luxuries,  they  invariably  descend  to  the  lowest  grades  of 
manual  labor  rather  than  degenerate  into  vicious  and  immoral  courses. 
Failing  the  kitchen,  women  may  canvass  for  books,  though  that  occu- 
pation, like  a  few  others  equally  profitable,  and  which  also  brings  them 
into  continual  contact  with  the  lords  of  creation,  has  a  drawback  in  the 
fact  that  some  men  leer  into  the  face  of  every  woman  who  strives  to  do 
business  for  herself,  as  though  she  were  a  moral  leper;  and  failing  all 
these,  she  may  at  least  take  to  the  needle.     At  this  last  occupation  she 
is  certain  of  meeting  no  competition,  save  from  her  own  sex.     In  all  my 
experience,  and  it  has  been  extensive,  I  never  yet  saw  a  man  making 
pantaloons  at  twelve  and  one-half  cents  per  pair.     But  they  will  not  all 
submit.     Refusing  to  acknowledge  the  position  in  life  nature  fixed  for 
them,  they  rebel,  and  unpleasantnesses  take  place.     An  incident  which 
fell  under  my  observation  recently,  illustrates  this  beautifully.     A  young 
lady,  named  Jane  Evans,  I  believe,  had  sustained  the  loss  of  both  her 
parents.     The  elder  Evanses  had  been  convinced  by  typhoid  fever  that 
this  was  a  cold  world,  and,  piloted  by  two  doctors,  had  sailed  out  in 
search  of  a  better  one.     Jane  had  a  brother,  a  manly  lad  of  twenty,  who, 
rather  than  disgrace  the  ancient  lineage  of  the  Evanses  by  manual  labor, 
took  up  the  profession  of  bar-tender.     Jane  was  less  proud,  and  as  her 
brother  did  nothing  for  her,  she  purchased  some  needles,  and  renting  a 
room  in  the  uppermost  part  of  a  building  in  a  secluded  part  of  the  city 
of  New  York,  commenced  a  playful  effort  to  live  by  making  shirts  at 
eighteen  cents  each,  for  a  gentleman  named  Isaacs.     She  was  situated, 
I  need  not  say,  pleasantly  for  one  of  her  class.     Her  room  was  not  large, 
it  is  true,  but  as  she  had  no  cooking-stove  or  bedstead,  what  did  she  want 
of  a  large  room?    She  had  a  window  which  didn't  open,  but  as  there 
was  no  glass  in  it,  she  had  no  occasion  to  open  it.     This  building  com- 
manded a  beautiful  view  of  the  back  parts  of  other  buildings  similar  in 
.appearance,  and  the  sash  kept  out  a  portion  of  the  smell.     Had  that  sash 
not  been  in  that  window- frame,  I  do  not  suppose  that  she  could  have 
staid  on  account  of  the  smell;  at  least  I  heard  her  say  that  she  got  just 
as  much  of  it  as  she  could  endure.     And  in  this  delightful  retreat  she 
sat  and  sat,  and  sewed  and  sewed.     Sometimes  in  her  zeal  she  would  sew 
till  late  in  the  night,  and  she  always  was  at  her  work  very  early  in  the 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASBF.  115 

morning.  She  paid  rent  promptly,  for  the  genial  old  gentleman  of 
whom  she  leased  her  room  had  a  sportive  habit  of  kicking  girls  into  the 
street  who  did  not  pay  promptly,  and  she  managed  every  now  and  then, 
did  this  economical  girl,  to  purchase  a  Loaf  of  bread,  which  she  ate. 

One  Saturday  night  she  took  her  bundle  of  work  to  the  delightful 
Mr.  Isaacs.  Jane  had  labored  sixteen  hours  per  day  on  them,  and  she 
had  determined,  as  Sunday  was  close  at  hand,  to  have  for  her  breakfast, 
in  addition  to  her  bread,  a  small  piece  of  mutton.  Mutton!  Luxuri- 
ous living  destroyed  ancient  Rome!  But  Mr.  Isaacs  found  fault  with 
the  making  of  these  shirts.  "They  were  not  properly  sewed,"  he  said, 
and  he  could  not,  in  consequence,  pay  her  the  eighteen  cents  each  for 
making,  which  was  the  regular  price.  Jane  then  injudiciously  cried 
about  it.  Now,  Mr.  Isaacs  was,  and  is,  possessed  of  a  tender  heart. 
He  has  a  great  regard  for  his  feelings,  and,  as  he  could  not  bear  to  see  a 
woman  cry,  he  forthwith  kicked  her  out  of  his  store  into  the  snow. 

What  did  this  wicked  girl  do?  Did  she  go  back  and  ask  pardon  of 
the  good,  kind,  tender-hearted  Mr.  Isaacs?  Not  she!  On  the  contrary, 
she  clenched  her  hands,  and,  passing  by  a  baker's  shop,  stole  a  loaf  of 
bread,  and,  brazen  thing  that  she  was,  in  pure  bravado,  she  ate  it  in 
front  of  the  shop.  She  said  she  was  hungry,  when  it  was  subsequently 
proven  that  she  had  eaten  within  forty  hours.  Justice  was  swift  upon 
the  heels  of  the  desperate  wretch — it  always  is,  by  the  way,  close  behind 
the  friendless.  She  was  arrested  by  a  policeman,  who  was  opportunely 
there,  as  there  was  a  riot  in  progress  in  the  next  street  at  the  time, 
which  was  providential,  for  had  there  been  no  riot  in  the  next  street, 
the  policeman  would  have  been  in  that  street,  and  Jane  Evans  might 
have  got  away  with  her  plunder.  She  was  conveyed  to  the  city  prison; 
was  herded  in  a  cell  in  which  were  other  women  who  had  progressed 
farther  than  she  had;  was  afterward  arraigned  for  petty  larceny  and 
sent  to  prison  for  sixty  days.  Now,  see  how  surely  evildoers  come  to 
had  ends.  The  wretched  Jane — this  fearfully  depraved  Jane — unable 
after  such  a  manifestation  of  depravity  to  hold  up  her  head,  fell  into 
bad  ways.  Remorse  for  the  stealing  of  that  loaf  of  bread  so  preyed 
upon  her  that  she  wandered  about  the  streets  of  the  city  five  days,  ask- 
ing for  work,  and  finally  threw  herself  off  a  wharf.  Oh,  how  her 
"brother,  the  bartender,  was  shocked  at  this  act!  Had  she  continued 
working  cheerily  for  Mr.  Isaacs,  accepting  the  situation  like  a  Chris- 
tian, taking  life  as  she  found  it,  would  she  have  thrown  herself  off  a 
dock?  Never!  So  you  see  women  who  do  not  want  to  steal  bread,  and 
be  arrested,  and  go  off  wharves,  must  take  Mr.  Isaacs'  pay  as  he  offers 
it,  and  must  work  cheerily  sixteen  hours  a  day,  whether  they  get  any 


116  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

thing  to  eat  or  not.  Had  this  wretched  girl  gone  back  contentedly  to 
her  room,  and  starved  to  death  cheerfully,  she  would  not  have  stolen 
bread,  she  would  not  have  lacerated  the  feelings  of  her  brother,  the  bar- 
tender, and  would  have  saved  the  city  of  New  York  the  expense  and 
trouble  of  fishing  her  out  of  the  dock.  Such  women  always  make 
trouble. 

The  women  who  fancy  they  are  oppressed,  demand,  first,  the  ballot, 
that  they  may  have  power  to  better  themselves;  and,  second,  the  change 
of  custom  and  education,  that  they  may  have  free  access  to  whatever 
employment  they  have  the  strength  and  capacity  to  fill,  and  to  which 
their  inclination  leads  them. 

Most  emphatically  I  object  to  the  giving  of  them  the  ballot.  It 
would  overturn  the  whole  social  fabric.  The  social  fabric  has  been 
overturned  a  great  many  times,  it  is  true — so  many  times,  indeed,  that 
it  seems  rather  to  like  it;  but  I  doubt  whether  it  would  be  strong  enough 
to  endure  this.  I  have  too  great,  too  high,  too  exalted  an  opinion  of 
woman.  I  insist  that  she  shall  not  dabble  in  the  dirty  pool  of  politics; 
that  she  shall  keep  herself  sacred  to  her  family,  whether  she  has  one  or 
not;  and  under  no  consideration  shall  she  go  beyond  the  domestic  circle 
of  which  she  is  the  center  and  ornament.  There  are  those  who  have  an 
insane  yearning  to  do  something  beyond  the  drudgery  necessary  to  sup- 
ply the  commonest  wants  of  life,  and  others  who  have  all  of  these,  who 
would  like  to  round  up  their  lives  with  something  beyond  dress  and  the 
unsatisfactory  trifles  of  fashionable  life.  There  may  be  women  turning 
night  into  day  over  the  needle,  for  bread  that  keeps  them  just  this  side 
of  potters  field,  who  are  unreasonable  enough  to  repine  at  the  system 
that  compels  them  to  this;  and  they  may,  possibly,  in  secret  wish  that 
they  had  the  power  in  their  hands  that  would  make  men  court  their 
influence,  as  the  hod-carrier's  is  courted,  for  the  vote  he  casts.  The 
seamstress  toiling  for  a  pittance  that  would  starve  a  dog,  no  doubt  prays 
for  the  power  that  would  compel  lawmakers  to  be  as  careful  of  her  inter- 
ests as  they  are  of  the  interests  of  the  well-paid  male  laborers  in  the 
dock-yards,  who,  finding  ten  hours  a  day  too  much  for  them,  were  per- 
mitted by  act  of  Congress  to  draw  ten  hours'  pay  for  eight  hours'  work. 
The  starved  colorer  of  lithographs,  the  pale,  emaciated  tailoress,  bal- 
ancing death  and  virtue;  drawing  stitches  with  the  picture  of  the  luxu- 
rious brothel  held  up  by  the  devil  before  her,  where  there  is  light,  and 
warmth,  and  food,  and  clothing,  and  where  death  is,  at  least,  farther 
off  ;  no  doubt  this  girl  wishes  at  times  that  she  could  have  that  potent 
bit  of  paper  between  her  fingers  that  would  compel  blatant  demagogues 
to  talk  of  the  rights  of  workingwornen  as  well  as  of  workingmen. 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASBT.  117 

• 

But  woman  would  lose  her  self-respect  if  she  mixed  with  politicians. 
Most  men  do;  and  how  could  woman  hope  to  escape.  Think  you  that 
any  pure  woman  could  be  a  member  of  the  New  York,  New  Jersey  or 
Pennsylvania  legislatures,  and  remain  pure?  For  the  sake  of  the  gen- 
erations to  come,  I  desire  that  one  sex,  at  least,  shall  remain  uncon- 
taminated.  Imagine  your  wife  or  your  sister  accepting  a  bribe  from  a 
lobby  member!  Imagine  your  wife  or  your  sister  working  a  corrupt 
measure  through  the  legislature,  and  becoming  gloriously  elevated  upon 
champagne  in  exultation  over  the  result!  No!  I  insist  that  these 
things  shall  be  confined  to  man,  and  man  alone. 

The  mixing  of  women  in  politics,  as  all  the  writers  on  the  subject 
have  justly  remarked,  would  lower  the  character  of  the  woman  without 
elevating  that  of  the  man.  Imagine,  oh  my  hearers,  a  woman  aspiring 
for  office,  as  men  do!  Imagine  her  button-holing  voters,  as  men  do! 
Imagine  her  lying  glibly  and  without  scruple,  as  men  do!  Imagine  her 
drinking  with  the  lower  classes,  as  men  do!  of  succeeding  by  the  grossest 
fraud,  as  men  do!  of  stealing  public  money  when  elected,  as  men  do! 
and  finally  of  sinking  into  the  lowest  habits,  the  vilest  practices,  as  Dr. 
Bushnell,  in  several  places  in  his  blessed  book  on  the  subject,  asserts 
that  men  do!  You  see,  to  make  the  argument  good  that  women  would 
immediately  fall  to  a  very  deep  depth  of  degradation  the  moment  they 
yote,  we  must  show  that  the  act  of  voting  compels  men  to  this  evil;  at 
least  that  is  what  Dr.  Bushnell  proves,  if  he  proves  any  thing.  We 
must  show  that  the  holding  of  an  office  by  man  is  proof  positive  that  he 
has  committed  crime  enough  to  entitle  him  to  a  cell  in  a  penitentiary, 
and  that  he  who  votes  is  in  a  fair  way  thereto.  Before  reading  the 
doctor's  book,  I  was  weak  enough  to  suppose  that  there  were  in  the 
United  States  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  very  excellent  men,  whose 
long  service  in  church  and  state  was  sufficient  guarantee  of  their  excel- 
lence; whose  characters  were  above  suspicion,  and  who  had  lived,  and 
would  die,  honest,  reputable  citizens.  But  as  all  male  citizens  above  the 
age  of  twenty-one  vote,  and  as  voting  necessarily  produces  these  results, 
why,  then  we  are  all  drunkards,  tricksters,  thieves  and  plunderers. 
This  disturbing  woman,  to  whom  I  read  Dr.  Bushnell's  book,  remarked 
that  if  voting  tended  to  so  demoralize  men,  and  as  they  had  always 
voted,  it  would  be  well  enough  for  all  the  women  to  vote  just  once,  that 
they  might  all  go  to  perdition  together.  I  am  compelled  to  the  opinion 
that  the  doctor  is  mistaken.  I  know  of  quite  a  number  of  men  who  go  to 
the  polls  unmolested,  who  vote  their  principles  quietly,  and  go  home 
the  better  for  having  exercised  the  right.  I  believe  that,  before  and 
since  Johnson's  administration,  there  have  been  honest  men  in  office. 


118  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

But  no  woman  could  do  these  things  in  this  way.     It  would  unsex  her, 
just  as  it  does  when  a  woman  labors  for  herself  alone. 

Again,  I  object  to  giving  the  ballot  to  woman,  because  we  want 
peace.  We  don't  want  divided  opinion  in  our  families.  As  it  is,  we 
must  have  a  most  delightful  unanimity.  An  individual  can  not  possibly 
quarrel  with  himself.  As  it  is  now  arranged,  man  and  wife  are  one,  and 
the  man  is  the  one.  [Laughter.]  In  all  matters  outside  the  house  the 
wife  has  no  voice,  and  consequently  there  can  be  no  differences.  Oh, 
what  a  blessed  thing  it  would  be  if  the  same  rule  could  obtain  among- 
men  !  Had  the  radicals  had  no  votes  or  voices,  there  would  have  been 
no  war,  for  the  democracy,  having  it  all  their  own  way,  there  would 
have  been  nothing  to  quarrel  about.  It  was  opposition  that  forced 
Jefferson  Davis  to  appeal  to  arms.  True,  the  following  of  this  idea 
would  dwarf  the  Republicans  into  pygmies,  and  exalt  the  democracy  into 
giants.  My  misguided  friend,  Wendell  Phillips,  would  shrink  into  a 
commonplace  man,  possibly  he  would  lose  all  manhood,  had  he  been 
compelled  to  agree  with  Franklin  Pierce  or  hold  his  tongue.  It  would  be 
bad  for  Wendell,  but  there  would  have  been  a  calm  as  profound  as  stag- 
nation itself.  Our  present  system  may  be  bad  for  women,  but  we,  the 
men,  have  our  own  way — and  peace.  Our  wives  and  daughters  are,  I 
know,  driven,  from  sheer  lack  of  something  greater,  to  take  refuge  in 
disjointed  gabble  of  bonnets,  cloaks  and  dresses,  and  things  of  that 
nature,  their  souls  are  dwarfed  as  well  as  their  bodies,  their  minds  are 
diluted  —  but  we  have  peace. 

Once  more.  It  would  unbalance  society.  Starting  upon  the  assump- 
tion that  women  have  no  minds  of  their  own,  and  would  always  be  con- 
trolled by  men,  we  can  show  wherein  the  privilege  would  work  incal- 
culable mischief.  Imagine  Brigham  Young  marching  to  the  polls  at 
the  head  of  a  procession  of  wives  one  hundred  and  seventy-three  in  num- 
ber, all  of  them  with  such  ballots  in  their  hands  as  he  selects  for  them! 
Put  Brigham  and  his  family  in  a  close  congressional  district,  and  he 
would  swamp  it.  Then,  again,  if  they  should  think  for  themselves,  and 
vote  as  they  pleased,  they  would  overthrow  Brigham.  In  either  case  the 
effect  would  be  terrible. 

What  shall  we  do  with  the  woman  question  ?  It  is  upon  us,  and 
must  be  met.  I  have  tried  for  an  hour  to  be  a  conservative,  but  it 
won't  do.  Like  poor  calico,  it  won't  wash.  There  are  in  the  United 
States  some  millions  of  women  who  desire  something  better  than  the 
lives  they  and  their  mothers  have  been  living.  There  are  millions  of 
women  who  have  minds  and  souls,  and  who  yearn  for  something  to 
develop  their  minds  and  souls.  There  are  millions  of  women  who  desire 


PETROLEUM  V.   NASBT.  119 

to  have  something  to  think  about,  to  assume  responsibilities,  that  they 
may  strengthen  their  moral  natures,  as  the  gymnast  lifts  weights  to 
strengthen  his  physical  nature.  There  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
women  who  have  suffered,  in  silence,  worse  evils  by  far  than  the 
slaves  of  the  South,  who,  like  the  slaves  of  the  South,  have  no 
power  to  redress  their  wrongs,  no  voice  so  potent  that  the  public  must 
hear.  In  the  parlor,  inanity  and  frivolity;  in  the  cottage,  hopeless  serv- 
itude, unceasing  toil;  a  dark  life,  with  a  darker  ending.  This  is  the 
condition  of  women  in  the  world  to-day.  Thousands  starving  physically 
for  want  of  something  to  do,  with  a  world  calling  for  labor  ;  thousands 
starving  mentally,  with  an  unexplored  world  before  them.  One-half  of 
humanity  is  a  burden  on  the  other  half. 

I  know,  Oh,  ye  daughters  of  luxury,  that  you  do  not  desire  a 
change  !  There  is  no  need  of  it  for  you.  Your  silks  could  not  be  more 
costly,  your  jewels  could  not  flash  more  brightly,  nor  your  surroundings 
be  more  luxurious.  Your  life  is  pleasant  enough.  But  I  would  com- 
pel you  to  think,  and  thinking,  act.  I  would  put  upon  your  shoulders 
.responsibilities  that  would  make  rational  beings  of  you.  I  would  make 
you  useful  to  humanity  and  to  yourselves.  I  would  give  the  daughters 
of  the  poor,  as  I  have  helped  to  give  the  sons  of  the  poor,  the  power  in 
their  hands  to  right  their  own  wrongs.  [Applause.] 

There  is  nothing  unreasonable  in  this  demand.  The  change  is  not 
so  great  as  those  the  world  has  endured  time  and  again  without  damage. 
To  give  the  ballot  to  the  women  of  America  to-day,  would  not  be  so 
fearful  a  thing  as  it  was  ten  years  ago  to  give  it  to  the  negro,  or  as  it  was 
a  hundred  years  ago  to  give  it  to  the  people.  [Applause.] 

I  would  give  it,  and  take  the  chances.  [Applause.]  The  theory 
of  Eepublicanism  is,  that  the  governing  power  must  rest  in  the  hands  of 
the  governed.  There  is  no  danger  in  truth.  If  the  woman  is  governed, 
she  has  a  right  to  a  voice  in  the  making  of  laws.  To  withhold  it  is  to 
dwarf  her,  and  to  dwarf  woman  is  to  dwarf  the  race. 

I  would  give  the  ballot  to  woman  for  her  own  sake,  for  I  would 
enlarge  the  borders  of  her  mind.  I  would  give  it  to  her  for  the  sake  of 
humanity.  I  would  make  her  of  more  use  to  humanity  by  making  her 
more  fit  to  mold  humanity.  I  would  strengthen  her,  and  through  her 
the  race.  The  ballot  of  itself  would  be  of  direct  use  to  but  few,  but 
indirectly  its  effects  would  reach  through  all  eternity.  It  would  com- 
pel a  different  life.  It  would  compel  woman  to  an  interest  in  life,  would 
fit  her  to  struggle  successfully  against  its  mischances,  and  prepare  her 
for  a  keener,  higher,  brighter  appreciation  of  its  blessings.  Humanity 
is  now  one-sided.  There  is  strength  on  the  one  side  and  weakness  on  the 


120  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

other.  I  would  have  both  sides  strong.  I  would  have  the  two  sides 
equal  in  strength,  equally  symmetrical;  differing  only  as  nature  made 
them,  not  as  man  and  custom  have  distorted  them.  In  this  do  we  out- 
rage custom?  Why,  we  have  been  overturning  customs  six  thousand 
years,  and  there  are  yet  enough  hideous  enormities  encumbering  the 
earth  to  take  six  thousand  years  more  to  kill.  In  the  beginning,  when 
force  was  the  law,  there  were  kings.  The  world  tired  of  kings.  There 
were  false  religions.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  overturned  them.  Luther 
wrecked  a  venerable  system  when  he  struck  the  church  of  Eorne  with 
his  iron  hand;  your  fathers  and  mine  stabbed  a  hoary  iniquity  when  they 
overturned  kingcraft  on  this  continent,  and  Lovejoy,  Garrison  and 
Phillips  struck  an  institution  which  ages  had  sanctioned  when  they 
assaulted  slavery.  The  old  is  not  always  the  best. 

I  would  have  your  daughters  fitted  to  grapple  with  life  alone,  for  no 
matter  how  you  may  leave  them,  you  know  not  what  fate  may  have  in 
store  for  them.  I  would  make  them  none  the  less  women,  but  stronger 
women,  better  women.  Let  us  take  this  one  step  for  the  sake  of  human- 
ity. Let  us  do  this  much  toward  making  humanity  what  the  Creator 
intended  it  to  be — like  Himself.  [Applause.] 


NASBY'S  BEST  STORY. 

One  of  Nasby's  best  satires  was  his  description  how  the  colored  peo- 
ple were  kept  out  of  the  white  school  of  the  Confedrit  Cross  Eoads. 
Says  the  Satirist: 

Our  teacher  was  a  young  lady  from  New  Hampshire.  She  had 
abolition  blood  in  her  yankee  veins.  When  the  niggers  came  to  her 
school,  what  do  you  think  she  did?  Send  them  away?  No,  she  received 
'em,  gave  'em  seats  and  put  'em  into  classes — think  on  that — with  white 
children!  I  tell  you  there  wuz  trouble  incur  town.  I,  as  a  leading 
Democrat,  wuz  sent  for  to  wunst,  and  gladly  I  come.  I  wuz  never  so 
gratified  in  my  life.  Had  smallpox  broken  out  in  that  skool,  there 
woodent  hev  bin  half  the  eggscitement  in  the  township.  It  wuz  the 
subjick  uv  yooniversal  talk  everywhere,  and  the  Democrisy  wuz  a  biliii 
like  a  pot.  I  met  the  trustees  uv  the  town,  and  demanded  ef  they 
intended  tamely  to  submit  to  this  outrage?  I  askt  em  whether  they 
intended  to  hev  their  children  set  side  by  side  with  the  decendants  uv 
Ham,  who  wuz  comdemned  to  a  posishen  uv  inferiority  forever?  Kin 
you,  I  asked,  so  degrade  yourselves,  and  so  blast  the  self-respeck  uv 
yoor  children? 


PETROLEUM  V.  NASBT.  121 

And  bilin  up  with  indignashen,  they  answered  "never!"  and 
yoonanimously  requested  me  to  accompany  'em  to  the  skoolhouse,  that 
they  mite  peremptory  expel  these  disgustin  beins  who  hed  obtrooded 
themselves  among  those  uv  a  sooperior  race. 

On  the  way  to  the  skoolhouse,  wich  wuz  perhaps  a  mile  distant,  1 
askt  the  Board  ef  they  knowed  those  girls  by  site.  No,  they  replied, 
they  hed  never  seed  'em.  "I  hevbin  told,"  sed  I,  "that  they  are  nearly 
white." 

"They  are,"  sed  one  uv  'em,  "quite  white."  "It  matters  not,"  sed 
I,  feelin  that  there  wuz  a  good  opportoonity  for  improvin  the  occashen, 
"it  matters  not.  There  is  suthin  in  the  nigger  at  wich  theinstink  uv 
the  white  man  absolootly  rebels,  and  from  wich  it  instinktively  recoils. 
-So  much  experience  hev  I  had  with  'em,  that  put  me  in  a  dark  room 
with  one  uv  'em,  no  matter  how  little  nigger  there  is  in  'em,  and  that 
unerrin  instink  wood  betray  'em  to  me,  wich,  by  the  way,  goes  to  prove 
that  the  dislike  we  hev  to  'em  is  not  the  result  uvprejudis,  but  is  a  part 
uv  our  very  nacher,  and  one  uv  its  highest  and  holiest  attriboots." 

Thus  communin,  we  entered  the  skoolhouse.  The  skoolmarm  wuz 
there,  ez  brite  arid  ez  crisp  ez  a  Janooary  mornin;  the  skolers  wuz  ranged 
on  the  sects  a  studyin  ez  rapidly  ez  possible. 

"Miss,"  sed  I,  "we  are  informed  that  three  nigger  wenches,  daugh- 
ters of  one  LETT,  a  nigger,  is  in  this  skool,  a  minglin  with  our  daughters 
ez  a  ekal.  Is  it  so?" 

"  The  Misses  LETT  are  in  this  skool,"  sed  she,  ruther  mischeeviously, 
"  and  I  am  happy  to  state  that  they  are  among  my  best  pupils." 

"Miss,"  sed  I  sternly,  "pint  'em  out  to  us!" 

"  Wherefore?"  sed  she. 

"  That  we  may  bundle  'em  out!"  sed  I. 

"Bless  me!"  sed  she,  " I  reely  coodent  do  that.     Why  expel  "em?" 

"Becoz,"sed  I,  "no  nigger  shel  contaminate  the  white  children  uv 
this  deestrick.  No  sech  disgrace  shel  be  put  on  to  'em." 

"  Well,"  sed  this  aggravatin  skoolmarm,  wich  wuz  from  Noo  Ham- 
shire,  "yoo  put  'em  out." 

"  But  show  me  wich  they  are." 

"  Can't  you  detect  'em,  sir?  Don't  their  color  betray  'em?  Ef  they 
are  so  neer  white  that  you  can't  select  'em  at  a  glance,  it  strikes  me  that 
it  can't  hurt  very  much  to  let  'em  stay." 

I  wuz  sorely  puzzled.  There  wuzn't  a  girl  in  the  room  who  looked 
at  all  niggery.  But  my  reputashun  wuz  at  stake.  Noticin  three  girls 
settin  together  who  wuz  somewhat  dark  complectid,  and  whose  black 
Tiair  waved,  I  went  for  'em  and  shoved  out,  the  cussid  skoolmarm  almost 
bustin  with  lafter. 


122  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Here  the  tragedy  okkerred.  At  the  door  I  met  a  man  who  rode  four 
miles  in  his  zeal  to  assist  us.  He  hed  alluz  hed  an  itchin  to  pitch  into 
a  nigger,  and  ez  he  cood  do  it  now  safely,  he  proposed  not  to  lose  the 
chance.  I  wuz  a  puttin  on  'em  out,  and  hed  jist  dragged  'em  to  the 
door,  when  I  met  him  enterin  it. 

"  Wat  is  this?"  sed  he,  with  a  surprised  look. 

"  We're  puttin  out  these  cussid  wenches,  who  is  contaminatin  yoor 
children  and  mine/'  sed  I.  "  Ketch  hold  uv  that  pekoolyerly  disgustin 
one  yonder,"  sed  I. 

"  Wenches  !     You  d — d  skoundrel,  them  girls  are  my  girls." 

And  without  waitin  for  an  explanashen,  the  infooriated  monster 
sailed  into  me,  the  skoolmarm  layin  over  on  oneuv  the  benches  explodin 
in  peels  uv  lafter.  The  three  girls,  indignant  at  bein  mistook  for  nig- 
ger wenches,  assisted  their  parent,  and  between  'em,  in  about  four 
minutes  I  wuz  insensible.  One  uv  the  trustees,  pityin  my  woes,  took 
me  to  the  neerest  railroad  stashen,  and  somehow,  how  I  know  not,  I  got 
home,  where  I  am  at  present  recooperatin. 

I  hev  only  to  say  that  when  I  go  on  sich  a  trip  again,  I  shel  require 
as  condishen  precedent  that  the  Afrikins  to  be  put  out  shel  hev  enuff 
Afrikin  into  'em  to  prevent  sich  mistakes.  But,  good  Lord,  wat  hev'ent 
I  suffered  in  this  cause  ? 

PETROLEUM  V.   NASBY,  P.  M. 
(wich  is  Postmaster.) 


123 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

PREACHER,  ORATOR,  PATRIOT  AXD  WIT. 


BIOGEAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

This  book  abounds  in  sunshine  from  living  men,  but  the  great  Beecher,  dead, 
still  lives  in  the  American  heart.  His  sunshine  is  in  every  household.  He  was  the 
purest  type  of  the  robust,  free  American. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  born  in  Litchfield,  Conn.,  in  1813,  and  died  in  Brook- 
lyn in  1887.  He  was  educated  in  New  England,  studied  theology  in  Ohio,  and  at 
the  age  of  twenty-four  commenced  preaching  in  Lawrenceburg,  Ind.  He  preached 
in  the  West  for  ten  years.  It  was  in  the  wild  West  that  he  got  his  boundless  experi- 
ence in  human  nature  and  freedom  in  the  expression  of  his  thoughts.  He  inherited 
muscle  and  an  impulsive  nature  from  his  Litchfield  ancestor.  He  was  too  great  to 
be  a  polished  scholar.  His  intellect  was  too  fertile  for  established  creeds.  Creeds 
and  dogmas  stand  still;  Beecher  was  always  growing.  His  fertility  of  intellect  was 
amazing.  "  For  full  fifty  years,"  says  Edward  Pierpont,  "  he  talked  to  the  public, 
and  no  man  ever  said  so  much  and  repeated  so  little.  His  humor  was  immense,  as 
any  one  could  see  by  looking  into  his  great,  broad,  laughing  face.  His  heart  was 
warm  with  love  and  his  personal  magnetism  wonderful.  He  did  not  reflect;  he  felt, 
and  put  his  feelings  into  burning  words.  His  imagination  was  large  and  his  hope  as 
boundless  as  his  love.  Talmage  and  Moody  are  great,  but  they  stood  still,  walled  in 
with  creeds  and  dogmas,  while  Beecher,  like  Swing,  traveled  on  and  on,  and  the  the- 
ology of  Calvin  and  Wesley  and  Jonathan  Edwards  grew  mean  and  small.  He 
taught,  the  church  to  think.  He  put  his  arms  around  the  slave.  He  stood  with  Gar- 
rison and  Wendell  Phillips,  yes,  led  them  on  till  victory  was  won.  A  constitution 
with  slavery  in  was  naught  to  him.  His  conscience  told  him  slavery  was  wrong,  and 
he  fought  it  whole-hearted  to  the  end.  He  loved  our  young  republic — loved  free 
speech,  and,  when  division  came,  he  stood  for  unity  and  law." 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  says:  "Beecher  was  a  mighty  power  in  the  land,  and 
his  work  was  a  living  work,  and  its  results  can  never  be  known  until  the  books  of 
heaven  are  balanced." 

Mr.  Beecher  never  cared  to  be  called  a  humorist,  but  his  wit  and 
humor  were  as  keen  as  his  logic.  He  never  strayed  away  from  his 
train  of  thought  to  gather  in  a  witty  idea  to  illustrate  his  sermons. 
Neither  did  he  avoid  wit.  "When  a  witty  idea  stood  before  him,  he 

124 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER.  125 

grasped  it  and  bent  it  to  illustrate  his  thought.  His  conception  of 
wit  was  as  quick  as  lightning.  It  came  like  a  flash  (often  in  a 
parenthesis),  and  it  often  instantly  changed  the  tears  of  his  hearers 
to  laughter. 

When  Dr.  Collyer  asked  the  great  preacher  why  the  newspapers 
were  always  referring  to  the  Plymouth  brethren,  but  never  spoke 
of  the  Plymouth  sisters,  he  could  not  help  saying : 

"  Why,  of  course,  the  brethren  embrace  the  sisters !  " 

Mr.  William  M.  Evarts  was  once  talking  with  General  Grant 
about  the  great  Brooklyn  divine,  when  suddenly  the  distinguished 
lawyer  musingly  asked : 

"  Why  is  it,  General,  that  a  little  fault  in  a  clergyman  attracts 
more  notice  than  a  great  fault  in  an  ordinary  man  ? " 

"  Perhaps,"  said  the  General,  thoughtfully,  "  it  is  for  the  same 
reason  that  a  slight  shadow  passing  over  the  pure  snow  is  more 
readily  seen  than  a  river  of  dirt  on  the  black  earth." 

In  all  of  his  humor,  Mr.  Beecher  never  harmed  a  human  soul. 
His  mirth  was  innocent,  and  his  wit  was  for  a  grand  purpose. 

I  was  talking  with  Mr.  Beecher  one  day  about  humor.  He  was 
always  ready  to  talk  to  any  man  who  had  a  good  idea  or  a  good 
story,  but  he  wanted  the  story  to  be  as  pure  as  a  parable.  He 
wanted  it  to  prove  or  illustrate  some  idea. 

"Humor,"  said  Beecher,  "is  everywhere.  Humor  is  truth. 
Even  John  Bunyan  was  a  humorist.  It  was  humor  when  Bunyan 
made  Christian  meet  one  '  Atheist '  trudging  along  with  his  back  to 
the  Celestial  City. 

" '  Where  are  you  going  ? '  asked  the  Atheist,  laughing  at 
Christian. 

"  'To  the  Celestial  City,'  replied  Christian,  his  face  all  aglow 
with  the  heavenly  light. 

" '  You  fool ! '  said  Atheist,  laughing,  as  he  trudged  on  into  the 
darkness.  '  I've  been  hunting  for  that  place  for  twenty  years  and 
have  seen  nothing  of  it  yet.  Plainly  it  does  not  exist.' 

"  Heaven  was  behind  him,"  said  Beecher,  seriously. 

There  was  one  kind  of  men,  however,  that  Beecher  disliked  to 
talk  to — cranks,  and  they  were  always  calling  on  him. 

"What  did  he  do  with  them ? "  you  ask. 

Well,  he  always  turned  them  over  to  Mrs.  Beecher  with  the 
remark,  "  Mother,  you  take  care  of  this  interesting  man." 


126  KINO 3  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Beecher  liked  to  talk  of  his  early  poverty.  He  always  treated 
poverty  in  a  humorous  vein.  "  Once,"  he  said,  "I  was  the  poorest 
man  in  Lawrenceburg,  Ind.,  where  I  supplied  my  first  church,  away 
back  in  1836.  I  was  so  poor  that  I  couldn't  buy  firewood  to  keep 
us  warm,  without  going  without  books.  I  remember  one  Sunday 
morning  there  came  a  big  flood  in  the  Ohio.  I  was  preaching  at 
the  time,  and  I  looked  out  of  the  window  and  saw  the  flood-wood 
go  sailing  by  my  house.  It  seemed  wrong  for  me  to  see  so  much 
good  wood  going  by  and  I  not  able  to  catch  it." 

"  What  did  you  do  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Why,  I  rushed  that  sermon  through,  hurried  home,  and  that 
afternoon,  with  the  aid  of  Deacon  Anderson,  I  got  out  enough 
driftwood  to  keep  Mrs.  Beecher  in  firewood  for  three  months,  and 
all  the  while,"  he  said,  looking  up  and  smiling  at  his  wife, "  Mother 
stood  in  the  doorway  and  cheered  us  on."  Then,  looking  quizzically 
at  Mrs.  Beecher,  he  said,  "  Didn't  you,  Mother  ? " 

"  No,  Henry,  you  never  did  any  such  thing,"  said  Mrs.  Beecher, 
who  never  could  see  through  any  of  the  great  preacher's  jokes. 

"  In  1838,"  said  Mr.  Beecher,  "I  was  so  poor  that  I  rode  clear 
to  Fort  Wayne  from  Indianapolis  on  horseback,  and  delivered  a 
sermon  dedicating  the  Fort  Wayne  Presbyterian  church,  and  only 
got  $25  for  it.  Then  I  went  to  New  York  to  attend  the  Congrega- 
tional convention.  While  in  New  York  I  went  to  Dr.  Prime,  of 
the  Observer,  and  offered  to  write  weekly  letters  from  the  West  at 
a  dollar  a  piece." 

"  Did  Prime  take  you  up  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Yes,  and  paid  me  $5  in  advance." 

"  And  you  actually  wrote  letters  for  a  dollar  a  column  ? " 

"  No,"  said  Mr.  Beecher,  laughing,  "  the  next  day  Prime  thought 
it  over,  repented  of  his  haste  and  profligacy,  and  wrote  me  that  he 
did  not  think  my  letters  ^ould  be  worth  it." 

"  But  oh,"  he  groaned,  turning  to  Mrs.  Beecher, "  it  was  a  bitter 
disappointment  to  us — wasn't  it,  Mother  ? " 

One  day,  speaking  of  puns,  Mr.  Beecher  said  Mrs.  Beecher 
received  one  on  his  name  that  was  very  complete.  Then  Mrs. 
Beecher  went  and  got  an  old  scrap  book  and  read : 

Said  a  great  Congregational  preacher 
To  a  hen:     "You're  a  beautiful  creature; " 
The  hen,  just  for  that,  laid  three  eggs  in  his  hat, 
And  thus  did  the  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 


EENRT  WARD  BEECHES.  12? 

"From  Lawrenceburg,"  said  Mr.  Beecher,  in  a  serious  conversa- 
tion one  day,  "  \ve  went  to  Indianapolis.  I  was  quite  proud  of  the 
change,  but  it  was  hard  work — this  missionary  work  in  the  new 
West.  I  remember  the  first  revival  I  had  in  my  Indianapolis 
church.  I  had  been  laboring  at  Terre  Haute  in  a  revival — the  first 
that  I  ever  worked  in — and  I  came  home  full  of  fire  and  zeal,  pray- 
ing all  the  way.  There  was  a  prayer  that  began  in  Terre  Haute 
and  ended  in  Indianapolis,  eighty  miles  apart.  I  recollect  that, 
when  I  got  home  and  preached,  I  gave  an  account  of  what  I  had 
seen  in  Terre  Haute.  The  next  night  I  began  a  series  of  protracted 
meetings.  The  room  was  not  more  than  two-thirds  full,  and  the 
people  were  apparently  dead  to  spiritual  things.  On  the  second 
night,  I  called  for  persons  who  would  like  to  talk  with  me  to 
remain.  I  made  a  strong  appeal,  but  only  one  person — a  poor  Ger- 
man servant  girl — stopped.  All  the  children  of  my  friends,  the 
young  people  that  I  knew  very  well,  got  up  and  went  out ;  all  went 
out  except  this  one  servant-girl,  who  answered  to  my  sermon  call. 
I  remember  that  there  shot  through  me  a  spasm  of  rebellion.  I 
had  a  sort  of  feeling,  '  For  what  was  all  this  precious  ointment 
spilled  ?  Such  a  sermon  as  I  had  preached,  such  an  appeal  as  I  had 
made,  with  no  result  but  this!' 

"  In  a  second,  however,  almost  quicker  than  a  flash,"  continued 
Mr.  Beecher,  "there  opened  to  me  a  profound. sense  of  the  value  of 
any  child  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  This  was  Christ's  child,  and  I 
was  so  impressed  with  the  thought  that  any  thing  of  his  was 
unspeakably  precious  beyond  any  conception  which  I  could  form, 
that  tears  came  into  my  eyes  and  ran  down  my  cheeks,  and  I  had 
the  feeling  to  the  very  marrow  that  I  would  be  willing  to  work  all 
my  days  among  God's  people  if  I  could  do  any  good  to  the  lowest 
and  the  least  creature.  My  pride  was  all  gone,  my  vanity  was  all 
gone,  and  I  was  caught  up  into  a  blessed  sense  of  the  love  of  God 
to  men,  and  of  my  relation  to  Christ ;  and  I  thought  it  to  be  an 
unspeakable  privilege  to  unloose  the  shoe-latchets  from  the  poorest 
of  Christ's  disciples.  And  out  of  that  spirit  came  the  natural  con- 
sequences." 

"  During  that  revival,"  continued  Mr.  Beecher,  "  I  remember 
how  I  was  called  to  see  a  sick  girl  who  was  perhaps  seventeen  or 
eighteen  years  of  age.  A  gentleman  informed  me  that  she  had 
been  sick  for  twelve  months,  and  that  she  had  become  quite  discon- 
solate. 


128 


HENRY  WARD  BEECUER.  129 

"'Go  and  see  her,'  said  another,  'for  if  any  body  ought  to  be 
comforted,  she  ought  to  be.  She  has  the  sweetest  disposition,  and 
she  is  the  most  patient  creature  imaginable ;  and  you  ought  to  hear 
her  talk.  One  can  hardly  tell  whether  she  talks  or  prays.  It  is 
heaven  to  go  into  her  room.' 

" '  I  wanted  a  little  more  of  the  spirit  of  heaven,  so  I  went  to 
see  her. 

"  'I  hear  of  what  you  are  doing  in  your  revival,'  she  said,  '  and 
of  what  my  companions  are  doing,  and  I  long  to  go  out  and  labor 
for  Christ ;  and  it  seems  very  strange  to  me  that  God  keeps  me  here 
on  this  sick-bed.' 

"  '  My  dear  child,'  I  said,  '  don't  you  know  that  you  are  preach- 
ing Christ  to  .this  whole  household,  and  to  every  one  that  knows 
you?  Your  gentleness  and  patience  and  Christian  example  are 
known  and  read  by  them  all.  You  are  laboring  for  Christ  more 
effectually  than  you  could  anywhere  else.'  Her  face  brightened, 
she  looked  up  without  a  word  anu  gave  thanks  to  God." 

On  one  occasion,  I  asked  Mr.  J.  B.  Pond,  who  traveled  with  the 
great  divine  for  100,000  miles,  while  he  lectured  1,200  times  and 
took  in  $250,000,  what  kind  of  a  companion  Beecher  was. 

"  Ho  was,"  said  Mr.  Pond,  "  an  all-round,  jovial,  companionable 
and  good-natured  man.  He  had  no  eccentricities.  Wherever  he 
went,  he  was  like  an  electric  light,  reflecting  brightness  and  com- 
manding1 respect.  I  have  been  with  him  when  the  mob  hooted  at 
his  heels  and  spat  upon  him ;  when  crowds  jeered  and  hurled  all 
sorts  of  epithets  at  him,  and  when  it  looked  as  if  he  were  going  to 
be  stoned  and  trampled  to  death.  He  never  betrayed  fear,  never 
grew  angry,  but,  turning  to  me,  he  would  say : 

" '  I  do  not  blame  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.' 

"  When  we  arrived  in  a  town,  as  a  rule,  a  crowd  was  at  the  depot 
to  see  Mr.  Beecher.  At  Clinton,  Iowa,  the  greatest  insults  were 
offered  to  him.  The  train  arrived  late,  and  we  managed  to  get  to 
the  hotel  without  being  overrun  by  the  usual  mob  at  the  depot. 
After  a  hasty  supper,  we  concluded  to  walk  to  the  hall  where  the 
lecture  was  to  be  delivered.  Great  throngs  lined  the  streets,  eager 
to  see  Mr.  Beecher.  We  walked  side  by  side  through  a  wall  of 
human  beings,  a  large  crowd  following  at  our  heels,  hooting  and 
jeering.  I  happened  to  turn,  and  saw  three  or  four  men  spitting 
upon  Mr.  Beecher  s  back.  He  never  said  a  word,  but  manfully 


\ 

130  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

walked  along.  When  we  arrived  at  the  hall,  we  found  the  members 
of  the  committee  who  were  to  introduce  the  lecturer  and  sit  upon 
the  platform  grouped  around  laughing  and  guying  each  other  about 
appearing  in  public  with  Mr.  Beecher.  Even  the  chairman  was  dis- 
posed to  be  reticent  and  surly  toward  us.  "Women  in  the  audience 
tittered,  and  it  looked  as  if  an  outbreak  of  rudeness  could  not  be 
avoided.  Every  body  seemed  ready  to  cast  the  first  stone. 

"Before  that  audience,  inimical  and  prepared  to  hiss,  Mr.  Beecher 
won  one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of  his  life.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  scene.  He  pulled  off  his  overcoat,  and,  without  even  a  look  of 
anger,  threw  it  aside.  Throwing  back  his  long,  snow-white  locks, 
revealing  a  high  forehead  and  a  frank,  determined  face,  he  walked 
upon  the  platform.  The  chairman  coldly  said:  "  Mr.  Beecher,  ladies 
and  gentlemen."  The  orator  stepped  to  the  front  of  the  platform 
and  began  his  speech  in  a  clear,  ringing  voice  that  instantly  hushed  the 
suppressed  murmur  and  jeers.  From  that  time  until  he  closed  the 
great  audience  was  with  him.  Such  flights  of  oratory,  bursts  of 
eloquence  and  keen,  irresistible  humor  I  never  heard  from  his  lips 
before.  Tears,  laughter  and  round  after  round  of  applause  greeted 
him,  and  when  he  ceased  the  audience  remained,  as  if  it  could  not 
depart.  The  peroration  that  the  great  orator  delivered  brought  the 
people  to  their  feet.  He  walked  behind  the  scene  and  picked  up  his 
overcoat.  The  audience  would  not  go,  but  lingered  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  him.  Throwing  down  his  overcoat,  he  stepped  into  the 
auditorium.  Women  and  men  shook  him  by  the  hand ;  some  wanted 
to  touch  his  garments,  if  nothing  else,  and  for  an  hour  he  talked  to 
them  socially,  and  they  reluctantly  parted  from  him. 

"  We  went  to  our  hotel,"  continued  Major  Pond,  "and  had  a 
lunch  of  crackers  and  cheese,  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  taking 
in  the  evening  after  a  lecture.  He  remarked  : 

"  '  Well,  Pond,  I  never  had  greater  reason  to  talk  than  to-night. 
I  feel  that  what  I  said  will  do  some  good  and  convince  my  hearers 
of  errors  they  labored  under.' 

u  One  day,  after  an  experience  with  a  mob,  he  happened  to  pick 
up  a  Chicago  paper  and  glance  over  it.  Holding  it  in  his  hand, 
pointing  to  headlines  of  slang  and  vituperation,  he  said  : 

"  'No  wonder  the  people  are  so  rough  and  vulgar  when  daily  fed 
upon  such  sensational  nastiness.' 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER.  131 

"  At  that  time  the  Chicago  papers  were  not  refined,  I  must  con- 
fess. Now  the  "Windy  City  has  a  Browning  Club,  and  the  citizens 
have  discussions  about  Sappho,  all  of  which  indicates  progress. 

"Going  from  Davenport,  Iowa,  to  Muscatine, on  the  cars, a  little 
incident  occurred  that  showed  Mr.  Beecher's  politeness  and  genial 
disposition.  Two  ladies,  refined  and  well  dressed,  sat  behind  him 
in  the  cars.  He  was  leaning  back,  reading  a  novel  and  oblivious  to 
his  surroundings.  I  sat  opposite  to  him  and  could  see  the  ladies. 
They  discovered  on  his  overcoat  a  few  gray  hairs  and  began  to  qui- 
etly pick  them  off  to  keep  as  souvenirs.  He  felt  and  knew  evidently 
what  was  going  on,  for  he  said  : 

"'Conductor,  are  there  are  any  flies  in  this  car?' 

Then  turning,  he  saw  what  the  ladies  wrere  doing.  They  begged 
his  pardon  and  said  they  saw  a  gray  hair  or  two  on  his  overcoat, 
which  they  brushed  away.  With  a  twinkle  in  his  eyes  he  replied 
that  his  wife  was  never  so  careful  about  taking  away  his  hair. 

Mr.  Beecher  had  a  deep  sympathy  for  every  one  in  trouble,  and 
poor  people  in  trouble  were  always  coming  to  him. 

"  Personal  sympathy,"  said  the  great  preacher  one  day,  "  is  what 
we  all  want.  I  remember  the  first  time  any  one  ever  sympathized 
•with  me." 

"  When  was  it  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Well,  one  evening,  when  on  the  farm  up  in  Litchfield,  my 
father  said  to  me  (I  was  a  little  boy  then) :  '  Henry,  take  these 
letters  and  go  down  to  the  postoffice  with  them.' 

"  I  was  a  brave  boy,  and  yet  I  had  imagination.  And  thou- 
sands of  people  are  not  so  cowardly  as  you  think.  Persons  with 
quick  imaginations  and  quick  sensibility  people  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,  so  that  there  are  a  thousand  things  in  them  that  harder  men 
do  not  think  of  and  understand.  I  saw  behind  every  thicket  some 
shadowy  form;  and  I  heard  trees  say  strange  and  weird  things; 
and  in  the  dark  concave  above  I  could  hear  flitting  spirits.  All  the 
heaven  was  populous  to  me,  and  the  earth  was  full  of  I  know  not 
what  strange  sights.  These  things  wrought  my  system  to  a  won- 
derful tension.  When  I  went  pit-a-pat  along  the  road  in  the  dark, 
I  was  brave  enough  ;  and  if  it  had  been  anything  that  I  could  have 
seen ;  if  it  had  been  any  thing  that  I  could  have  fought,  it  would 
have  given  me  great  relief ,  but  it  was  not.  It  was  only  a  vague, 
outlying  fear.  I  knew  not  what  it  was.  When  father  said  to  me, 


132  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

'Go,'  I  went,  for  I  was  obedient.  I  took  my  old  felt  hat  and 
stepped  out  of  the  door ;  and  Charles  Smith  (a  great,  thick-lipped 
black  man  who  worked  on  the  farm,  and  who  was  always  doing- 
kind  things)  said  to  me :  '  Look  here,  I  will  go  with  you.'  Oh, 
sweeter  music  never  came  out  of  any  instrument  than  that.  The 
heaven  was  just  as  full,  and  the  earth  was  just  as  full,  as  before  ; 
but  now  I  had  somebody  to  go  with  me.  It  was  not  that  I  thought 
he  was  going  to  fight  for  me.  I  did  not  think  there  was  going  to 
be  any  need  of  fighting,  but  I  had  somebody  to  lean  on ;  somebody 
to  care  for  me ;  somebody  to  help  and  succor  me.  Let  any  thing 
be  done  by  direction,  let  any  thing  be  done  by  thought  or  rule,  and 
how  different  it  is  from  its  being  done  by  personal  inspiration ! " 

"Speaking  of  the  mystery  of  conversion,"  one  day  said  Mr. 
Beecher,  "  I  can  best  illustrate  conversion  by  a  story.  When  I  was 
.-about  four  years  old,  my  father  married,  and  I  had  a  second  mother. 
.It  was  a  great  event,  this  second  mother  coming  to  us  children.  I 
:remember  Charles  and  Harriet  and  I  all  slept  in  the  same  room. 
We  were  expecting  that  father  would  come  home  with  our  'new 
•mother '  that  night.  Just  as  we  had  all  got  into  our  trundle-beds 
up-stairs,  and  were  about  falling  asleep,  we  heard  a  racket  down- 
stairs, and  every  mother's  son  and  daughter  of  us  began  to  halloo, 
*  Mother!  mother!  MOTHER!'  And  presently  we  heard  a  rustling 
on  the  stairs,  and  in  the  twilight  we  saw  a  dim  shadow  pass  into 
the  room,  and  somebody  leaned  over  the  bed  and  kissed  me,  and 
kissed  Charles  and  said  :  '  Be  good  children,  and  I  will  see  you 
to-morrow.' 

"  I  remember  very  well  how  happy  I  was.  I  felt  that  I  had 
a  mother.  I  felt  her  kiss  and  I  heard  her  voice.  I  could  not 
distinguish  her  features,  but  I  knew  that  she  was  my  mother.  That 
word  mother  had  begun  to  contain  a  great  deal  in  my  estimation. 

"  It  seems  to  me  it  is  very  much  in  that  way  that  God  comes  to 
human  souls — as  a  shadow,  so  to  speak ;  without  any  great  definite- 
ness,  and  yet  with  an  attitude  and  a  love-producing  action;  without 
any  clear,  distinct,  importable  sensations,  but  producing  some  great 
joy,  conferring  some  great  pleasures,  as  though  some  great  blessing 
had  come  to  us.  "Was  not  my  mother's  presence  real  to  us  when,  in 
the  twilight  of  the  evening,  she  for  a  moment  hovered  over  us  and 
kissed  us  '  How  do  you  do  ? '  and  '  Good-by  ? '  And  is  it  not  a  real- 
ity when  the  greater  Mother  and  Father  does  the  same  to  the  souls 
of  men  in  their  twilight?  " 


HEN  it  Y  WAKD  BEECIIEK. 


133 


ir.4  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  But  is  conversion  in  religion  absolutely  necessary  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Yes,  some  time  in  life  it  becomes  necessary.  It  is  the  balm  of 
Gilead.  It  will  heal  a  broken  heart.  It  will  fill  a  void  in  life  that 
nothing  else  will  fill.  I  knew  a  man  who  had  no  companion  but 
Iris  little  child.  The  child  filled  his  whole  heart.  lie  and  his  wife 
lived  apart,  and  by-and-by  she  died,  but  she  left  the  dear  little  babe. 
The  babe  was  his  sun  and  heaven  and  God — everything  to  him. 
She  was  his  morning  star,  for  he  waked  to  think  of  her  before  any 
other  one,  and  to  frolic  with  her,  and  chat  and  prattle  with  her. 
And  his  last  thought,  as  he  left  the  house,  was  of  her.  And  now 
and  then  she  gleamed  into  his  thoughts  all  day  long  in  his  business. 
And  when  the  evening  came  she  was  his  bright  evening  star.  And 
when  he  went  home  at  night,  and  she  greeted  him  at  the  door,  he 
caught  her  in  his  arms  and  inwardly  thanked  God.  She  sickened; 
and  he  said  to  God:  'Kill  me,  but  spare  the  child.'  And  God 
took  the  child.  And  he  said :  '  I  have  nothing  left.'  He  lay 
before  God  as  the  flax  lies  before  the  flail,  and  said :  '  Strike ! 
strike!  I  am  dead.  lam  cut  up  from  the  roots.  Strike!'  He 
would  have  died  if  he  could,  but  he  could  not.  Kobod}'  can  die 
that  wants  to.  It  is  folks  who  want  to  live  that  die,  apparently. 
And  finding  that  he  could  not  die,  by-and-by  he  got  up  and  crept 
into  life  again,  and  said :  *  What  do  I  care  whether  I  make  or  lose  i' 
He  had  no  longer  any  motive  for  laying  up  property.  And  so  he 
said  :  'If  there  is  anything  in  religion.  I  am  going  to  try  to  get 
it.  I  shall  die  if  I  do  not  have  something.'  Then  religion  came  to 
him.  It  filled  the  great  void  and  vacuum  of  his  soul.  Religion  can 
take  the  place  of  wife,  mother  and  the  dear  baby,  too.  Nothing 
else  will  do  it." 

"  But  is  it  not  enough  to  be  a  moral  man  ? ''  I  asked. 

"No,  Christianity  goes  beyond  morality.  A  Christian  is  always 
a  moral  man,  but  a  moral  man  is  not  always  a  Christian.  The 
Christian  and  the  moralist  are  alike  in  manv  things,  but  by-and-bv 

v  »/  *• 

the  Christian  will  be  admitted  to  a  sphere  which  the  moralist  can 
not  enter. 

"  A  barren  and  a  fruitful  vine  are  growing  side  by  side  in  the 
garden,  and  the  barren  vine  says  to  the  fruitful  one :  '  Is  not  my 
root  as  good  as  yours  '. ' 

"  '  Yes,'  replies  the  vine,  'as  good  as  mine." 


HENRf   WARD  BEECHER.  135 

"  '  And  are  not  ray  bower-leaves  as  broad  and  spreading,  and  is 
not  my  stem  as  large  and  my  bark  as  shaggy  ?' 

"'Yes,'  says  the  vine. 

" '  And  are  not  my  leaves  as  green,  and  am  I  not  taller  than 
you?' 

"  '  Yes,'  meekly  replies  the  vine,  'but  I  have  blossoms.' 

"  '  Oh  !  blossoms  are  of  no  use.' 

"  '  But  I  bear  fruit.' 

"  •'  What !  those  clusters  ?    Those  are  only  a  trouble  to  a  vine.' 

"But  what  thinks  the  vintner?  He  passes  by  the  barren  vine; 
but  the  other,  filling  the  air  with  its  odor  in  spring,  and  drooping 
with  purple  clusters  in  autumn,  is  his  pride  and  joy;  and  he  lingers 
near  it  and  prunes  it,  that  it  may  become  }*et  more  luxuriant  and 
fruitful.  So  the  moralist  and  the  Christian  may  grow  together  for 
a  while  ;  but  by-and-by,  when  the  moralist's  life  is  barren,  the 
•Christian's  will  come  to  flower  and  fruitage  in  the  Garden  of  the 
Lord.  '  Herein  is  my  Father  glorified,  that  ye  bear  much  fruit.'  " 

"  What  do  you  actually  know  about  God  and  a  hereafter,  after 
all  these  years  of  preaching  and  study?"  I  asked. 

Mr.  Beecher  thought  a  moment,  looked  puzzled,  and  finally  said  : 
u  I  know  no  more  than  the  wise  Dr.  Alexander  did.  I  have  been 
a  teacher  of  theology  all  my  life,  like  the  Doctor,  and  I  only  know 
that  I  am  a  sinner  and  that  Jesus  Christ  is  my  Savior." 

Every  foreigner  who  came  to  America  alwaj'S  wanted  to  meet 
Beecher.  Canon  Farrar  once  wrote :  "  I  went  over  to  Brooklyn 
to  hear  Beecher.  It  would  have  been  impossible  for  any  one  to 
hear  him  without  being  struck  with  his  wonderful  power." 

Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  took  Matthew  Arnold  over  to  Plymouth 
Church.  "  After  the  service,"  said  Mr.  Carnegie,  "  Mr.  Beecher 
came  direct  to  us,  and  as  I  introduced  him,  he  extended  both  arms, 
grasped  the  hands  of  the  apostle  of  sweetness  and  light,  and  said, 
i  I  am  very  glad  to  see  you,  Mr.  Arnold.  I  have  read,  I  think, 
every  word  you  have  ever  written,  and  much  of  it  more  than  once, 
and  always  with  profit.' 

Mr.  Arnold  returned  Mr.  Beecher's  warmth — as  who  could  ever 
fail  to  respond  to  it? — and  said, 'I  fear,  then,  you  found  some 
words  about  yourself  which  should  not  have  been  written ! ' 

"  'Not  at  all,  not  at  all ! '  was  the  prompt  response,  and  another 
hearty  shake  of  both  hands,  for  he  still  grasped  those  of  his  critic. 
*  Those  were  the  most  profitable  of  all.' ' 


136  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"Upon  another  occasion/'  said  Mr.  Carnegie,  "  I  had  gone  with 
a  well-known  English  divine,  the  Rev.  Joseph  Parker,  to  Plym- 
outh Church,  and  in  the  party  was  Miss  Ingersoll,  whom  I  intro- 
duced to  Mr.  Beecher,  saying  :  l  This  is  viie  daughter  of  Colonel 
Ingersoll ;  she  has  just  heard  her  first  sermon,  and  been  in  a  church 
for  the  first  time.' 

"  As  with  Mr.  Arnold,  Beech er's  arms  were  outstretched  at 
once ;  and  grasping  hers,  he  said,  as  he  peered  into  her  fair  face, 
'"Well,  you  are  the  most  beautiful  heathen  I  ever  saw.  How  is 
your  father  ?  He  and  I  have  spoken  from  the  same  platform  for  a 
good  cause,  and  wasn't  it  lucky  for  me  I  \vas  on  the  same  side 
with  him !  Remember  me  to  him.'  " 

Dr.  Parker  said  of  Beecher,  afterward :  "  Take  him  in  theology, 
botany,  agriculture,  medicine,  physiology  and  modern  philosophy, 
and  it  might  be  thought,  from  the  range  of  his  reading  and  the 
accuracy  of  his  information,  that  he  had  made  a  specialty  of  each." 

There  were  two  great  epochs  in  Beecher's  life — his  fight  against 
viuman  slavery  from  1850  to  1860,  and  his  fight  for  the  Republic  in 
England  in  1861.  In  the  anti-slavery  times,  Mr.  Beecher  flung 
himself,  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  soul,  and  with  all  his  splendid  elo- 
quence, into  the  task  of  rousing  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  Chris- 
tian people  of  the  North  against  slavery.  Says  Washington  Glad- 
den :  "  He  was  clear,  positive  and  uncompromising.  I  remember 
the  day  when  from  Beecher' s  lips  flashed  these  words :  ;  I  would  die 
myself,  cheerfully  and  easily,  before  a  man  should  be  taken  out  of 
my  hands  when  I  had  the  power  to  give  him  liberty  and  the  hound 
was  after  him  for  his  blood.  I  would  stand  as  an  altar  of  expia- 
tion between  slavery  and  liberty,  knowing  that  through  my  exam- 
ple a  million  men  would  live.  A  heroic  deed  in  which  one  yields, 
up  his  life  for  others  is  his  Calvary.  It  was  the  hanging  of  Christ 
on  that  hill-top  that  made  it  the  highest  mountain  on  the  globe. 
Let  a  man  do  a  right  thing  with  such  earnestness  that  he  counts 
his  life  of  little  value,  and  his  example  becomes  omnipotent.  There- 
fore it  is  said  that  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the  Church. 
There  is  no  such  seed  planted  in  this  world  as  good  blood  ! ' ' 

Mr.  Beecher  took  immense  delight  in  his  Peekskill  farm,  though 
it  was  an  expensive  luxury.  He  had  a  thousand  flowers  and  a 
thousand  shrubs,  and  he  knew  every  one  of  them.  They  were  his 
pets.  Sometimes  he  would  get  up  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 


HENRT  WARD.  BEECHER.  137 

and  when  Mrs.  Beecher  asked  him  where  he  was  going,  he  would 
say : 

"I'm  going  to  talk  with  my  flowers,  Mother." 

If  any -one  asked  him  about  the  revenue  of  his  farm,  he  would 
say  :  "  O,  I  get  that  in  health  and  jo}T  and  in  texts  for  my  books 
and  sermons!  " 

"If  you  want  to  know  how  much  I  make  off  of  my  farm/' he 
said,  "go  to  Mark  Twain :  he  knows,  and  he's  put  it  on  paper." 

The  great  preacher  never  tired  reading  Mark  Twain's  descrip- 
tion of  his  Peekskill  farm,  and  he  would  laughingly  show  his 
friends  an  old  newspaper  with  Twain's  article  marked  with  blue 
pencil. 

This  is  the  article : 

Mr.  Beccher's  farm  at  Poughkeepsie  consists  of  thirty-six  acres,  and  is  carried  on. 
on  strictly  scientific  principles.  He  never  puts  in  any  part  of  a  crop  without  con- 
sulting his  book.  He  plows  and  reaps  and  digs  and  sows  according  to  the  best 
authorities — and  the  authorities  cost  more  than  the  other  farming  implements  do. 
As  soon  as  the  library  is  complete,  the  farm  will  begin  to  be  a  profitable  investment. 
But  book-farming  has  its  drawbacks.  Upon  one  occasion,  when  it  seemed  morally 
certain  that  the  hay  ought  to  be  cut,  the  hay  book  could  not  be  found,  and  before  it 
was  found  it  Avas  too  late,  and  the  hay  was  all  spoiled.  Mr.  Beecher  raises  some  of 
the  finest  crops  of  wheat  in  the  country,  but  the  unfavorable  difference  between  the 
cost  of  producing  it  and  its  market  value  after  it  is  produced  has  interfered  consider- 
ably with  its  success  as  a  commercial  enterprise.  His  special  weakness  is  hogs,  how- 
ever. He  considers  hogs  the  best  game  a  farm  produces.  He  buys  the  original  pig 
for  a  dollar  and  a  half,  and  feeds  him  forty  dollars'  worth  of  corn,  and  then  sells  him 
for  about  nine  dollars.  This  is  the  only  crop  he  ever  makes  any  money  on.  He  loses 
on  the  corn,  but  he  makes  seven  dollars  and  a  half  on  the  hog.  He  does  not  mind 
this,  because  he  never  expects  to  make  any  thing  on  corn  any  way.  And  any  way  it 
turns  out,  he  has  the  excitement  of  raising  the  hog  any  how,  whether  he  gets  the 
worth  of  him  or  not.  His  strawberries  would  be  a  comfortable  success  if  the  robins 
would  eat  turnips,  but  they  won't,  and  hence  the  difficulty. 

One  of  Mr.  Beecher's  most  harassing  difficulties  in  his  farming  operations  comes 
of  -the  close  resemblance  of  different  sorts  of  seeds  and  plants  to  each  other.  Two 
years  ago  his  far-sightedness  warned  him  that  there  was  going  to  be  a  great  scarcity 
of  watermelons,  and  therefore  he  put  in  a  crop  of  seven  acres  of  that  fruit.  But 
when  they  came  up  they  turned  out  to  be  pumpkins,  and  a  dead  loss  was  the  conse- 
quence. Sometimes  a  portion  of  his  crop  goes  into  the  ground  the  most  promising 
sweet  potatoes,  and  comes  up  the  most  execrable  carrots.  When  he  bought  his  farm 
he  found  one  egg  in  every  hen's  nest  on  the  place.  He  said  that  that  was  just  the 
reason  that  to  many  farmers  failed — they  scattered  their  forces  too  much — concentra- 
tion was  the  idea.  So  he  gathered  those  eggs  together,  and  put  them  all  under  one 
experienced  hen.  That  hen  roosted  over  the  contract  night  and  day  for  many  weeks, 
under  Mr.  Beecher's  personal  supervision,  but  she  could  not  "phase"  them  eggs. 
Why  ?  Because  they  were  those  shameful  porcelain  things  which  are  used  by  mod- 
ern farmers  as  "nest  eggs." 


138  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Mr.  Beecber's  farm  is  not  a  triumph.  It  would  be  easier  if  he  worked  it  on 
shares  with  some  one;  but  lie  can  not  find  any  body  who  is  willing  to  stand  half  the 
expense,  and  not  many  that  are  able.  Still,  persistence  in  any  cause  is  bound  to  suc- 
ceed. He  was  a  very  inferior  farmer  when  he  first  began,  but  a  prolonged  and 
unflinching  assault  upon  his  agricultural  difficulties  has  had  its  effect  at  last,  and  he 
is  now  fast  rising  from  affluence  to  poverty. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  very  fend  of  his  brother,  Thomas  K.  Beecher, 
of  Elmira.  "The  people  don  «  understand  Tom,"  he  said.  "Why, 
one  of  his  Elmira  deacons  actually  left  the  church  because  Tom 
wrote  that  '  Brother  Watkins — Ah.'  They  didn't  know  that  it  was 
all  innocent  fun.  This  is  tne  article;  read  it,  but  you  want  to  put 
on  the  Methodist  prayer-meeting  tone,  you  know,"  and  Mr.  Beecher 
handed  me  this  copy  of  his  brother's  funn}r  travesty  (to  be  read 
through  the  nose) : 

My  beloved  brethren,  before  I  take  my  text  I  must  tell  you  about  parting  from 
my  old  congregation.  On  the  morning  of  the  last  Sabbath,  I  went  into  the  meeting- 
house to  preach  my  farewell  discourse.  Just  in  front  of  me  sot  the  old  fathers  and 
mothers  in  Israel;  the  tears  coursed  down  their  furrowed  cheeks,  their  tottering 
forms  and  quivering  lips  breathed  out  a  sad  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah!  Just 
back  of  them  sot  the  middle-aged  men,  brethren;  health  and  vigor  beamed  from  every 
countenance  and  stood  in  every  eye,  and  as  I  looked  down  upon  them  they  seemed 
to  say,  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah!  On  the  next  seat  back  of  them  sot  the  boys 
and  girls  that  I  had  baptized  and  gathered  into  the  Sabbath  school;  many  times  had 
they  been  rude  and  boisterous,  but  now  their  merry  laugh  was  hushed,  and  in  the 
silence  I  could  hear  there,  too,  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah!  Around  on  the  back 
seats  and  in  the  isles  stood  and  sot  the  colored  brethren,  and  as  I  looked  down  upon 
them  I  could  see  there  in  their  dreamy  eyes,  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah! 

When  I  had  finished  my  discourse  and  shaken  hands  with  the  brethren,  I  went 
out  to  take  a  last  look  at  the  old  church;  the  broken  steps,  the  flopping  blinds  and 
the  moss-covered  roof  breathed  a  sad  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah!  Then  I 
mounted  my  old  gray  mare,  with  all  my  earthly  possessions  in  my  saddle-bags,  and 
as  I  rode  down  the  streets  the  servant-girls  stood  in  the  doors,  and  waved  with  their 
brooms  a  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah!  And  as  I  passed  out  of  the  village  the  low 
wind  blew  softly  through  the  trees,  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah!  And  I  came 
down  to  the  brook-ah,  and  the  old  mare  stopped  to  drink-ah;  the  water  rippled  over 
the  pebbles,  farewell,  Brother  "Watkins — ah!  And  even  the  little  fishes  seemed  to  say, 
as  they  gathered  around,  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah!  And  I  was  slowly  passing 
up  the  hill,  meditating  upon  the  sad  vicissitudes  and  mutations  of  life,  when  sud- 
denly out  bounded  a  "big  hog  from  a  fence  corner,  and  it  scared  my  old  mare-ah,  and 
I  came  to  the  ground  with  my  saddle-bags  by  my  side-ah,  and  as  I  lay  there  in  the 
dust  of  the  road,  the  old  mare  ran  up  the  hill-ah,  and  as  she  turned  the  top  she 
waved  her  tail  back  at  me,  seemingly  to  say-ah,  farewell,  Brother  Watkins — ah! 

Mr.  Beecher  had  but   one   life-long  enemv,  and  that  was  the 

«/  * 

gifted  Charles  A.  Dana,  who  pursued  him,  even  beyond  his  grave. 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER.  139 

Still  the  great  divine  always  had  a  kind  word  for  Mr.  Dana.  He 
admired  his  talents.  One  day,  speaking  of  Dana,  he  said  : 

4>  Dana  said  a  smart  thing  to-day." 

"  What  was  it  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  When  they  were  discussing  at  the  editorial  convention  what 
was  proper  to  put  in  a  newspaper,  Dana  said  :  '  Well,  gentlemen, 
I  don't  know  what  you  think,  but  I'm  willing  to  permit  a  report  of 
any  thing  in  my  paper  that  the  Lord  permits  to  happen.'  But  in 
my  case,"  said  Beecher,  laughing,  "  Dana  goes  away  beyond  Provi- 
dence." 

BEECHER'S   LECTURE   THOUGHTS. 

MISFORTUNE. — The  steel  that  has  suffered  most  is  the  best  steel.  It 
has  been  in  the  furnace  again  and  again;  it  has  been  on  the  anvil ;  it  has 
been  tight  in  the  jaws  of  the  vice;  it  has  felt  the  teeth  of  the  rasp  ;  it 
has  been  ground  by  emery;  it  has  been  heated  and  hammered  and  filed 
until  it  does  not  know  itself,  and  it  comes  out  a  splendid  knife.  And  if 
men  only  knew  it,  what  are  called  their  "  misfortunes"  are  God's  best 
blessings,  for  they  are  the  moulding  influences  which  give  them  shape- 
liness and  edge,  and  durability  and  power. 

REFORMATION. — When  I  was  a  boy,  and  I  would  go  over  to  Aunt 
Bull's,  who  had  several  ugly  dogs  about  her  premises,  I  used  to  go  bare- 
footed, and  make  as  little  noise  as  possible,  and  climb  over  fences,  and 
go  a  round-about  way,  so  as,  if  possible,  to  get  into  the  house  before  the 
dogs  knew  that  I  was  coming.  If  I  had  acted  as  many  reformers  do,  I 
should  have  gone  with  my  pockets  full  of  stones,  and  fired  handful  after 
handful  at  the  dogs,  and  in  the  universal  barking  and  hullabaloo  should 
have  said  :  e '  See  what  a  condition  of  things  this  is  !  What  a  reforma- 
tion is  needed  here  !  " 

AGNOSTICISM  AND  FAITH. — Whatever  men  may  scientifically  agree  to 
believe  in,  there  is  in  men  of  noble  nature  something  which  science 
can  neither  illumine  nor  darken.  When  Tyndall  was  walking  among  the 
clouds  during  a  sunset  upon  the  Alps,  hiscompanion  said  to  him,  "  Can  you 
behold  such  a  sublime  scene  as  this  and  not  feel  that  there  is  a  God  ?" 
<c  Oh,"  said  he,  "  I  feel  it.  I  feel  it  as  much  as  any  man  can  feel  it; 
and  I  rejoice  in  it,  if  you  do  not  tell  me  I  can  prove  it."  The  moment 
you  undertake  to  bring  the  evidence  with  which  he  dealt  with  matter  to 
the  ineffable  and  the  hereafter,  then,  he  says,  "  I  am  agnostic.  I  don't 
know.  It  isn't  true;"  but 'the  moment  you  leave  the  mind  under  the 
gracious  influence  of  such  a  scene,  it  rises  above  the  sphere  of  doubt  or 
proof,  and  he  says,  "  I  accept  it." 


140 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER.  Ill 

THE  LITCHFIELD  SABBATH. — That  Sunday  of  my  childhood,  the  mar- 
velous stillness  of  that  day  overfall  Litchfield  town  hill;  that  wondrous 
ringing  of  the  bell;  the  strange  interpretation  that  my  young  imagination 
gave  to  the  crowing  of  the  cock  and  to  the  singing  of  the  birds;  that 
wondering  look  which  I  used  to  have  into  things;  that  strange  lifting 
half-way  up  into  inspiration,  as  it  were;  that  sense  of  the  joyful  influence 
that  sometimes  brooded  down  like  a  stormy  day,  and  sometimes  opened 
up  like  a  gala  day  in  summer  on  me,  made  Sunday  a  more  effectually 
marked  day  than  any  other  of  all  my  youthful  life,  and  it  stands  out  as 
clear  as  crystal  until  this  hour.  It  might  have  been  made  happier  and 
better  if  there  had  been  a  little  more  adaptation  to  my  disposition  and 
my  wants;  but,  with  all  its  limitations,  I  would  rather  have  the  other  six 
days  of  the  week  weeded  out  of  my  memory  than  the  Sabbath  of  my 
childhood.  And  this  is  right.  Every  child  ought  to  be  so  brought  up 
in  the  family,  that  when  he  thinks  of  home  the  first  spot  on  which  his 
thought  rests  shall  bd  Sunday,  as  the  culminating  joy  of  the  household. 

LOST  CHILD. — In  Indiana,  on  the  verge  of  civilization,  there  was  a 
poor  family — it  was  in  pioneer  life.  There  were  two  children — one  too 
small  to  get  out  of  the  house  and  the  other  five  years  old.  The  father 
was  gone.  The  oldest  child  ran  to  the  woods;  the  mother  went  to  find  it; 
spent  and  tired,  she  gave  the  alarm.  Men  were  summoned'  they  started 
about  the  middle  of  the  day,  went  out  with  torches  at  night,  and  the  next 
day,  and  the  night  following.  The  third  day  one  of  the  pioneers  came 
across  the  little  fellow  in  a  thicket,  spent  and  weary.  In  triumph  he 
seized  the  child,  and  took  a  bee-line  for  home.  He  shouted;  the  mother 
heard  the  shout.  I  never  knew  what  happened  when  the  mother  got  her 
child.  He  stammered  as  he  told  it.  The  human  heart  is  yet  a  human 
heart.  When  you  bring  back  God's  child,  lost  in  the  world's  wilderness, 
there's  joy  in  heaven. 

COMMUNION  WITH  GOD. — When  I  walked  one  day  on  the  top  of 
Mount  Washington  (glorious  day  of  memory!  such  another  day,  I  think, 
I  shall  not  experience  till  I  stand  on  the  battlements  of  the  New  Jeru- 
salem), how  I  was  discharged  of  all  imperfection!  The  wide,  far-spread- 
ing country  which  lay  beneath  me  in  beauteous  light — how  heavenly  it 
looked!  And  I  communed  with  God.  I  had  sweet  tokens  that  He  loved 
me.  My  very  being  rose  right  up  into  His  nature.  I  walked  with  Him. 
And  the  cities  far  and  near — Xew  York,  and  all  the  cities  and  villages 
that  lay  between  it  and  me — with  their  thunder;  the  wrangling  of 
human  passions  below  me,  were  to  me  as  if  they  were  not.  Standing, 
as  I  did,  high  above  them,  it  seemed  to  me  as  though  they  did  not 
•exist.  There  were  the  attritions,  and  cruel  grindings,  and  cries,  and 


142  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

tears,  and  shocks,  of  the  human  life  below,  but  I  was  lifted  up  so  liigh 
that  they  were  nothing  to  me.  The  sounds  died  out,  and  I  was  lost 
with  God.  And  the  mountain-top  was  never  so  populous  to  me  as  when 
I  was  absolutely  alone.  So  it  is  with  the  soul  that  goes  up  into  the 
bosom  of  Christ.  There  is  a  reach  Avhere  the  arrows  of  envy  cannot 
strike  you. 

KIXDXESS. — No  man  has  any  right  to  make  that  which  he  believes 
to  be  the  truth  of  God,  any  less  exacting,  less  sharp  or  clear,  because  he 
thinks  his  fellow-men  will  not  accept  it  if  he  states  it  in  his  blankest  and 
baldest  form.  I  read  an  incident  in  a  newspaper  the  other  day,  that  seems 
to  me  to  illustrate  this  point.     A  tired  and  dusty  traveler  was  leaning 
against  a  lamp-post  in  the  city  of  Rochester,  and  he  turned  and  looked 
on  a  boy  in  the  crowd  around  him,  and  said: 
"  How  far  is  it  to  Farmington?  " 
"  Eight  miles, "  said  the  boy.  , 

"  Do  you  think  it  is  so  far  as  that?"  said  the  poor,  tired  traveler. 
"  Well,  seeing  that  you  are  so  tired,  I  will  call  it  seven  miles." 
The  boy,  with  his  heart  overflowing  with  the  milk  of  human  kind- 
ness, pitied  the  exhausted  traveler  and  chose  to  call  it  seven  miles.     I 
know  that  I  have  seen  statements  of  the  truth  that  have  dictated  the 
same  answer.      Never  make  the  road  from  Rochester  to  Farmington 
seven  miles  -when  you  know  it  is  eight.      Do  not  do  a  wrong  to  truth, 
out  of  regard  for  men. 

PERFECTION. — The  perfection  of  the  schools  is-a  kind  of  mandarin, 
perfection.  Suppose  a  Chinese  mandarin,  whose  garden  was  filled  with 
dwarfed  plants  and  trees,  should  show  me  an  oak  tree,  two  feet  high, 
growing  in  a  pot  of  earth,  and  should  say  to  me,  "A  perfect  tree  must 
be  sound  at  the  root — must  it  not?  And  it  must  have  all  its  branches 

complete  and  its  leaves  .green.     Look  here It  is  a  perfect  tree  ;  why 

do  you  not  admire  it  ?"  Miserable  two-foot  oak  !  I  turn  from  it  to 
think  of  God's  oak  in  the  open  pasture,  a  hundred  feet  high,  wide- 
boughed  and  braving  the  storm.  Now  when  a  man  comes  to  me  talking 
of  perfection,  and  says,  "A  perfect  man  must  have  such-and-such 
qualities — must  he  not  ?  He  must  control  his  passions  and  appetites. 
He  must  not  sin  in  this  thing  or  in  that  thing.  Such  am  I.  I  do  not 
commit  this  fault,  or  fall  into  that  error.  I  have  trained  and  schooled 
myself.  Behold  me  ;  I  am  perfect,"  I  can  but  exclaim,  ''Miserable  two- 
foot  Christian ! "  I  have  no  patience  with  this  low  standard,  these 
earthly  comparisons,  this  relative  goodness.  I  must  outgrow  this  pot  of 
earth.  Gfod's  eternity  is  in  my  soul,  and  I  shall  need  it  all  to  grow  up 
to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ. 


HENRF    WARD  BEECHER.  143 

SPIRIT. -^Before  any  daisy  or  violet,  before  any  blossom  is  seen  in 
the  field,  the  sun  lies  with  its  bosom  to  the  ground,  crying  to  uhe  flower, 
and  saying,  "Why  tarriest  thon  so  long  ?"  and  day  after  day  the  sun 
comes,  and  pours  its  maternal  warmth  upon  the  earth,  and  coaxes  the 
plant  to  grow  and  bloom.  And  when  days  and  weeks  have  passed,  the 
root  obeys  the  call  and  sends  out  its  germ,  from  which  comes  the  flower. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  sun's  warmth  and  light,  the  flower  could  never 
have  come  to  itself.  So  the  Eternal  Spirit  of  God  rests  on  the 
human  soul,  warming  it,  quickening  it,  calling  it  and  saying,  "0  my  son  ! 
where  art  thou  ?"  And  at  last  it  is  this  Divine  sympathy  and  brooding 
influence  that  brings  men  to  God,  and  leads  them  to  say,  "Am  I  not 
sinful  ?"  and  to  yearn  for  something  higher  and  purer  and  holier.  It 
was  God's  work.  He  long  ago  was  working  in  you,  to  will  and  to  do  of 
His  own  good  pleasure. 

KICHES. — I  asked,  in  New  Hampshire,  how  much  it  took  to  make  a 
farmer  rich  there,  and  I  was  told  that  if  a  man  was  worth  five  thousand 
dollars  he  was  considered  rich.  If  a  man  had  a  good  farm,  and  had  ten 
thousand  dollars  out  at  interest,  oh!  he  was  very  rich — "passing"  rich. 
I  dropped  a  little  farther  down,  into  Concord,  where  some  magnates  of 
railroads  live  (they  are  the  aristocrats  just  now),  and  I  found  that  the 
idea  of  riches  was  quite  different  there.  A  man  there  was  not  considered 
rich  unless  he  had  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  in 
pretty  clear  stuff.  I  go  to  New  York,  and  ask  men  how  much  it  takes  to 
make  one  rich,  and  they  say,  "  There  never  was  a  greater  mistake  made 
than  that  of  supposing  that  five  or  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  make  a 
man  rich.  What  does  that  sum  amount  to?"  I  go  into  the  upper  cir- 
cles of  New  York,  where  millionaires,  or  men  worth  a  million  dollars  or 
over,  used  to  be  considered  rich,  and  there,  if  a  man  is  worth  five  or  ten 
millions  it  is  thought  that  he  is  "  coming  on."  It  is  said,  "He  will  be 
rich  one  of  these  days."  When  a  man's  wealth  amounts  to  fifty  or  a 
hundred  millions  he  is  very  rich.  Now  if  such  is  the  idea  of  riches  in 
material  things,  what  must  riches  be  when  you  rise  above  the  highest 
men  to  angels,  and  above  angels  to  God!  What  must  be  the  circuit 
which  makes  riches  when  it  reaches  Him?  And  when  you  apply  this 
term,  increscent,  to  the  Divine  nature,  as  it  respects  the  qualities  of  love 
and  mercy,  what  must  riches  be  in  God,  the  Infinite,  whose  experiences 
are  never  less  wide  than  infinity!  What  must  be  love  and  mercy,  and 
their  stores,  when  it  is  said  that  God  is  rich  in  them. 

FRUITS,  MEN  KNOWN"  AND  JUDGED  BY. — At  a  horticultural  show 
there  is  a  table  running  through  a  long  hall  for  the  exhibition  of  fruit ; 
and  this  table  is  divided  up  into  about  twenty-five  compartments,  which 


144  KIXGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

are  assigned  to  as  many  exhibitors  for  the  display  of  their  productions. 
I  go  along  the  table  and  discuss  the  merits  of  the  various  articles.  Here 
is  a  man  who  has  pears  and  apples  and  peaches  and  cherries  and 
plums.  They  are  not  very  good  ;  they  are  fair  ;  they  are  about  as  good 
as  the  average  of  the  fruit  on  the  table;  but  they  do  not  beat  any  body 
else's.  I  see  fruit  that  is  just  as  good  all  the  way  down  the  table.  But 
the  man  to  whom  it  belongs  says,  "Mine  ought  to  take  the  premium. " 
"Why?"  I  say.  "Because  it  was  raised  on  ground  whose  title 
goes  back  to  the  flood.  No  man  has  a  right  to  claim  the  premium 
unless  he  can  show  that  the  title  of  his  land  goes  clear  down  to  the  flood. 
I  can  prove  that  my  title  is  clear,  and  I  insist  upon  it  that  I  ought  to 
have  the  premium.  That  other  fruit  may  have  some  ground  for  pre- 
tense, but  it  is  uncovenanted."  I  go  to  the  next  compartment,  and  I  say 
to  the  man  there,  "Your  fruit  looks  fair.  It  is  about  on  an  average 
with  the  rest."  "  On  an  average  with  the  rest !  There  is  nothing  like 
it  on  the  table."  "Why  so?"  "Because  it  was  raised  under  glass. 
Those  other  fellows  raised  theirs  in  the  open  air.  This  is  church-fruit. 
It  was  all  raised  in  definite  enclosures,  according  to  prescriptions  which 
have  come  down  from  generation  to  generation.  In  judging  of  my 
fruit  you  must  take  into  consideration  that  it  was  raised  according  to 
the  ordinances.  It  is  pattern-fruit."  He  insists  that  his  fruit  is  better 
than  any  of  the  rest  on  account  of  the  way  in  which  he  raised  it.  I  go 
to  the  next  compartment.  There  I  see  some  magnificent  fruit,  and  I 
say  to  the  man: 

"  Where  did  you  raise  this  fruit  ?  " 

"  It  came  from  the  highway  near  my  house/'  he  says. 

"  From  the  highway  ?  " 

"  Yes.  It  grew  on  a  wilding  that  I  found  growing  there.  I  cleared 
away  the  brush  that  was  choking  it,  and  trimmed  it  a  little,  and  it  pro- 
duced this  fruit." 

"Well,"  I  say,  "I  think  that  is  the  best  fruit  on  the  table." 

From  the  whole  length  of  the  table,  on  both  sides,  there  arises  the 
acclamation,  "  What  !  are  you  going  to  give  that  man  the  premium, 
who  has  no  title  for  his  land,  no  greenhouse,  and  nothing  but  the  high- 
way to  raise  his  fruit  in  ?  What  sort  of  encouragement  is  that  to  regu- 
lar fruit-growers  ?"  The  whole  commotion  is  stopped  by  the  man  who 
has  the  awarding  of  the  premium  saying — 

"The  order  of  this  show  is:  'By  their  fruits  shall  ye  know 
them/" 

EvoLrncx  AND  IMMORTALITY. — Then  there  is  beyond  that  an  ele- 
ment in  evolution  which  endears  it  to  me  and  to  every  man ;  I  think 


HENRY  WARD  BEECUER.  145 

it  throws  bright  gleams  on  the  question  of  immortality.  I  see  that  tlie 
unfolding  series  in  this  world  are  all  the  time  from  lower  to  higher, 
that  the  ideal  is  not  reached  at  any  point,  that  the  leaf  works  toward 
the  bud,  and  the  bud  toward  the  blossom,  and  the  blossom  toward  the 
tree,  and  that  in  the  whole  experience  of  human  nature,  and  in  the 
whole  economy  of  the  providence  of  God  in  regard  to  the  physical 
world,  every  thing  is  on  the  march  upward  and  onward.  And  one 
thing  is  very  certain,  that  neither  in  the  individual  nor  in  the  collective 
mass  has  the  intimation  of  God  in  the  human  consciousness  verified  and 
fulfilled  itself.  The  imperfection  shows  that  we  are  not  much  further 
than  the  bud;  somewhere  we  have  a  right  to  a  prescience  of  the  blossom, 
and  the  last  we  can  see  of  men  and  of  the  horizon  is  when  their  faces 
are  turned  as  if  they  were  bound  for  the  New  Jerusalem,  upward  and 
onward.  I  think  there  is  no  other  point  of  doctrine  that  is  so  vital  to 
the  heart  of  mankind  as  this — we  shall  live  again;  we  shall  live  a  better 
and  a  higher  and  a  nobler  life.  Paul  says  :  "  If  in  this  life  only  we 
have  hope,  we  are,  of  all  men,  most  miserable;"  and  ten  thousand  weary 
spirits  in  every  community  are  saying:  "  Oh,  this  life  has  been  a 
.stormy  one  to  me;  full  of  disappointments,  full  of  pains  and  sorrows 
and  shames  and  poverty  and  suffering,  and  now  comes  this  vagabond 
philosophy,  and  dashes  out  of  my  hand  the  consolation  of  believing 
that  lam  to  live  again."  And  it  is  the  cry  of  the  soul:  "Lord  let 
me  live  again.0  The  accumulated  experience  of  this  life  ought  to  have 
a  sphere  in  wliich.it  can  develop  itself  and  prove  itself.  Now,  I  have 
this  feeling — I  thank  God  that  the  belief  in  a  future  and  in  an  immor- 
tal state  is  in  the  world;  I  thank  God  that  it  is  the  interest  of  every  man 
to  keep  it  in  the  world;  I  thank  God  that  there  is  no  power  of  proof  in 
science  that  we  shall  not  live.  Science  may  say:  "You  can  not  dem- 
onstrate it;"  but  I  believe  it;  then  it  is  my  joy.  Can  you  go  to  the  body 
of  the  companion  of  your  love,  the  lamp  of  your  life,  and  bid  it  fare- 
well at  the  grave?  One  of  the  most  extraordinary  passages  in  the  Gos- 
pels is  that  where  the  disciples  John  and  Peter  ran  to  the  grave  of  Jesus 
and  saw  the  angels  sitting,  and  they  said  to  them:  "I  know  whom 
ye  seek;  He  is  not  here;  He  is  risen."  But  what  a  woe  if  one  bore 
mother  or  father,  wife  or  child,  to  the  open  grave,  and  there  was  no 
angel  in  it;  if  you  said  farewell  forever  as  the  body  was  let  down  to  its. 
kindred  earth.  It  is  the  hope  of  a  joyful  meeting  by-and-by  that  sus- 
tains grief  and  bereavement  in  these  bitter  losses  in  life.  Science  can 
not  destroy  belief  such  as  this  of  immortality  after  resurrection;  it  can 
not  take  it  away;  ifc  can  not  destroy  it,  and  it  is  the  most  precious  boon 
we  have  in  life — the  faith  that,  through  Jesus  Christ,  we  shall  live  again, 

and  live  forever. 
10 


THE   "HAWKEYE  MAN.' 


BIOGRAPHY/  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

This  sweetest  and  loveliest  character  of  American  literature,  Robert  J.  Burdette, 
resides,  at  present,  in  a  beautiful  home  in  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa.  Mark  Twain,  iri  his 
"  Library  of  Wit  and  Humor,"  says: 

Robert  J.  Burdette  was  born  at  Greensburgh,  Pa.,  July  30,  1844.  His  family 
removed  to  Illinois  when  Robert  was  a  boy.  He  was  educated  in  the  Peoria  public 
schools.  He  enlisted  in  the  army  in  1862.  On  his  return  from  the  war,  he  engaged 
in  railroad  work,  and  afterward  became  associate  editor  of  the  Burlington  Hawkey e, 
in  the  columns  of  which  he  did  the  first  literary  work  which  made  him  famous.  Mr. 
Burdette,  besides  publishing  a  volume  of  sketches,  has  been  a  contributor  to  numer- 
ous magazines  and  periodicals.  He  is  at  present  a  licentiate,  and  often  preaches  from 
the  pulpits  of  the  Methodist  Church. 

Previous  to  going  on  the  Hawkeye,  Mr.  Burdette  established  a 
newspaper  in  Peoria.  One  day  I  met  the  humorist,  and  asked  him 
how  his  Peoria  paper  succeeded. 

"  Did  you  make  much  money  ? " 

"  Money  ? "  repeated  Burdette.  "  M-o-n-e-y !  Did  you  ever 
start  a  paper  ? " 

"  No,  I  believe  not,"  I  said. 

"  Well,  you  ought  to  try  it.  I  started  one  once.  Yes,  I  started 
one.  We  called  it  the  Peoria  Review,  and  it  was  started  '  to  fill  a 
long-felt  want.'" 

''  Did  you  have  any  partners  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Yes,  Jerry  Cochrane  was  my  partner.  There  were  several  very 
comforting  things  on  that  paper.  For  instance,  Jerry  and  I  always 
knew  on  Monda}?-  that  we  would  not  have  money  enough  to  pay  the 
hands  off  on  Saturday,  and  we  never  had.  The  hands  knew  it,  too, 
so  their  nerves  were  never  shocked  by  a  disappointment.  We  ran 
that  way  for  a  while,  getting  more  deeply  in  debt  all  the  time.  At 
last,  one  morning,  I  entered  the  office  and  found  Jerry  looking 
rather  solemn. 

147 


148  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

" '  Jerry, '  said  I,  '  you  want  another  partner. ' 

" '  Yes,  we  need  a  new  one, '  he  rejoined. 

" '  A  business  man,'  said  I. 

"'  One  with  executive  ability,'  said  he. 

"' A  financier, '   I  observed. 

" '  A  man  who  can  take  hold  of  things  and  turn  them  into  money,' 
he  concluded. 

"  '  Then  I  have  got  the  man  you  want, '  said  I,  and  I  introduced 
Frank  Hitchcock,  the  sheriff.  Jerry  said  Frank  was  the  man  he 
had  been  thinking  of,  so  we  installed  him  at  once. " 

"  Was  Hitchcock  a  good  business  man  ? "  I  asked. 

"  O,  yes,  everything  he  touched  turned  into  money.  He  proved 
to  be  all  we  anticipated,  and  he  ran  the  paper  with  the  greatest 
success  until  he  had  turned  that  too  into  money. " 

"  What  was  the  final  result  ? " 

"  Well,  when  we  wound  up  the  concern,  there  was  nothing  left 
but  two  passes  —  one  to  Cincinnati  and  one  to  Burlington.  We 
divided  them  and  went  in  different  directions. " 

Robert  Burdette's  wit  generally  borders  on  satire.  That  is,  he 
takes  some  foible  of  fashion,  or  some  foolish  domestic  custom,  and 
exaggerates  it.  To  illustrate,  the  humorist  thus  satirized  the  irri- 
table wife: 

Mrs.  Jones  was  at  a  party  the  other  night  smiling  so  serenely  to  every  one,  -when 
the  handsome  Captain  Hamilton,  who  reads  poetry  oh,  so  divinely,  and  is  oh,  so  nice, 
stepped  on  her  dress  as  she  was  hurrying  across  the  room. 

K  r-r-rt!  R'p!  R'p!  how  it  tore  and  jerked,  and  how  the  captain  looked  as  though 
he  would  die  as  he  said: 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Jones,  I  was  so  clumsy!" 

"Odear,  no,  Captain,"  she  sweetly  said,  smiling  till  she  looked  like  a  seraph 
who  had  got  down  here  by  mistake,  "it's  of  no  consequence,  I  assure  you,  it  doesn't 
make  a  particle  of  difference,  at  all." 

Just  twenty-five  minutes  later  her  husband,  helping  her  into  the  street  car, 
mussed  her  ruffle. 

"Goodness  gracious  me!"  she  snapped  out,  "  go  way  and  let  me  alone;  you'll 
tear  me  to  pieces  if  you  keep  on." 

Then  she  flopped  down  on  the  seat  so  hard  that  everything  rattled,  and  the 
frightened  driver  ejaculated,  "There  goes  that  brake  chain  again,"  and  crawled 
under  the  car  with  his  lantern  to  see  how  badly  it  had  given  way! 

When  I  asked  the  humorist  what  was  the  best  joke  he  ever  saw, 
he  said: 

"  It  occurred  in  our  Peoria  Bible  class.  Our  dear,  good  old  cler- 
gyman, one  hot  summer  afternoon,  was  telling  us  boys,  how  we 
should  never  get  excited. 


TEE  HAWKETE  MAN,  149 

"  'Boys, '  Jie  said,  '  you  should  never  lose  your  tempers — never 
let  your  angry  passions  rise.  You  should  never  swear  or  get  angry, 
or  excited.  I  never  do.  Now,  to  illustrate,'  said  the  clergyman, 
pointing  toward  his  face,  'you  all  see  that  little  fly  on  my  nose.  A 
good  many  wicked,  worldly  men  would  get  angry  at  that  fly,  but  I 
don't ! ' 

"'What  do  I  do? 

"  'Why,  my  children,  I  simply  say  go  away  fly go  away 

and gosh  Hast  it!  ifs  a  WASP  ! ' ' 

Robert  J.  Burdette  is  beloved  by  every  one.  He  never  had  an 
enemy.  One  day  when  I  made  this  remark  to  Petroleum  Y.  Nasby, 
he  said : 

"  Yes,  Burdette  is  a  lovely  character,  but  a  woe  was  pronounced 
against  him  in  the  Bible." 

"  How  was  that? "  I  asked. 

«  Why  the  Bible  says  '  woe  unto  you  when  all  men  speak  well  of 
you.' " 


BUEDETTE'S  EISE  AND  FALL  OF  THE  MUSTACHE. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — Adam  raised  Cain,  but  he  did  not  raise  a 
mustache.  He  was  born  a  man,  a  full  grown  man,  and  with  a  mustache 
already  raised. 

If  Adam  wore  a  mustache,  he  never  raised  it.  It  raised  itself.  It 
evolved  itself  out  of  its  own  inner  consciousness,  like  a  primordial 
germ.  It  grew,  like  the  weeds  on  his  farm,  in  spite  of  him,  and  to 
torment  him.  For  Adam  had  hardly  got  his  farm  reduced  to  a  kind  of 
turbulent,  weed-producing,  granger-fighting,  regular  order  of  things — 
had  scarcely  settled  down  to  the  quiet,  happy,  care-free,  independent 
life  of  a  jocund  farmer,  with  nothing  under  the  canopy  to  molest  or 
make  him  afraid,  with  every  thing  on  the  plantation  going  on  smoothly 
and  lovely,  with  a  little  rust  in  the  oats;  army  worm  in  the  corn; 
Colorado  beetles  swarming  up  and  down  the  potato  patch;  cutworms 
laying  waste  the  cucumbers;  curculio  in  the  plums  and  borers  in  the 
apple  trees;  a  new  kind  of  bug  that  he  didn't  know  the  name  of 
desolating  the  wheat  fields;  dry  weather  burning  up  the  wheat;  wet 
weather  blighting  the  corn;  too  cold  for  the  melons,  too  dreadfully  hot 
for  the  strawberries;  chickens  dying  with  the  pip;  hogs  being  gathered 
to  their  fathers  with  the  cholera;  sheep  fading  away  with  a  complication 
of  things  that  no  man  could  remember;  horses  getting  along  as  well  as 


150  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

could  be  expected,  with  a  little  spavin,  ring-bone,  wolf -teeth,  distemper, 
heaves,  blind  staggers,  collar  chafes,  saddle  galls,  colic  now  and  then, 
founder  occasionally,  epizootic  when  there  was  nothing  else;  cattle 
going  wild  with  the  horn  ail;  moth  in  the  bee-hives;  snakes  in  the  milk 
house;  moles  in  the  kitchen  garden — Adam  had  just  about  got  through 
breaking  wild  land  with  a  crooked  stick,  and  settled  down  comfortably, 
when  the  sound  of  the  boy  was  heard  in  the  land. 

Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  Adam  was  probably  the  most  troubled 
and  worried  man  that  ever  lived  ? 

We  have  always  pictured  Adam  as  a  careworn  looking  man;  a  puz- 
zled looking  granger  who  would  sigh  fifty  times  a  day,  and  sit  down  on 
a  log  and  run  his  irresolute  fingers  through  his  hair  while  he  wondered 
what  under  the  canopy  he  was  going  to  do  with  those  boys,  and  what- 
ever was  going  to  become  of  them.  "We  have  thought,  too,  that  as  often 
as  our  esteemed  parent  asked  himself  this  conundrum,  he  gave  it  up. 
They  must  have  been  a  source  of  constant  trouble  and  mystification  to 
him.  For  you  see  they  were  the  first  boys  that  humanity  ever  had  any 
experience  with.  And  there  was  no  one  else  in  the  neighborhood  who 
had  any  boy,  with  whom  Adam,  in  his  moments  of  perplexity,  could 
consult.  There  wasn't  a  boy  in  the  country  with  whom  Adam's  boys 
were  on  speaking  terms,  and  with  whom  they  could  play  and  fight. 

Adam,  you  see,  labored  under  the  most  distressing  disadvantages 
that  ever  opposed  a  married  man,  and  the  father  of  a  family.  He  had 
never  been  a  boy  himself,  and  what  could  he  know  about  boy  nature  or 
boy  troubles  and  pleasure?  His  perplexity  began  at  an  early  date. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  the  celerity  with  which  he  kicked  off  the  leaves, 
and  paced  up  and  down  in  the  moonlight  the  first  time  little  Cain  made 
the  welkin  ring  when  he  had  the  colic.  How  did  Adam  know  what 
ailed  him?  He  couldn't  tell  Eve  that  she  had  been  sticking  the  baby 
full  of  pins.  He  didn't  even  know  enough  to  turn  the  vociferous  infant 
over  on  his  face  and  jolt  him  into  serenity.  If  the  fence  corners  on  his 
farm  had  been  overgrown  with  catnip,  never  an  idea  would  Adam  have 
had  what  to  do  with  it.  It  is  probable  that  after  he  got  down  on  his 
knees  and  felt  for  thorns  or  snakes  or  rats  in  the  bed,  and  thoroughly 
examined  young  Cain  for  bites  or  scratches,  he  passed  him  over  to  Eve 
with  the  usual  remark: 

"  There,  take  him  and  hush  him  up,  for  heaven's  sake,"  and  then 
went  off  and  sat  down  under  a  distant  tree  with  his  fingers  in  his  ears, 
and  perplexity  in  his  brain. 

And  young  Cain  just  split  the  night  with  the  most  hideous  howls 
the  little  world  had  ever  listened  to.  It  must  have  stirred  the  animals 


THE  HA  WRETE  MAN.  151 

up  to  a  degree  that  no  menagerie  has  ever  since  attained.  There  was 
no  sleep  in  the  vicinity  of  Eden  that  night  for  any  body,  baby,  beasts  or 
Adam.  And  it  is  more  than  probable  that  the  weeds  got  a  long  start  of 
Adam  the  next  day,  while  he  lay  around  in  shady  places  and  slept  in 
troubled  dozes,  disturbed,  perhaps,  by  awful  visions  of  possible  twins 
and  more  colic.  [Laughter.] 

And  when  the  other  boy  came  along,  and  the  boys  got  old  enough  to 
sleep  in  a  bed  by  themselves,  they  had  no  pillows  to  fight  with,  and  it 
is  a  moral  impossibility  for  two  brothers  to  go  to  bed  without  a  fracas. 
And  what  comfort  could  two  boys  get  out  of  pelting  each  other  with 
fragments  of  moss  or  bundles  of  brush  ?  What  dismal  views  of  future 
humanity  Adam  must  have  received  from  the  glimpses  of  original  sin 
which  began  to  develop  itself  in  his  boys.  How  he  must  have  wondered 
what  put  into  their  heads  the  thousand  and  one  questions  with  which 
they  plied  their  parents  day  after  day.  "We  wonder  what  he  thought 
when  they  first  began  to  string  buckeyes  on  the  cat's  tail.  And  when 
night  came,  there  was  no  hired  girl  to  keep  the  boys  quiet  by  telling 
them  ghost  stories,  and  Adam  didn't  even  know  so  much  as  an  anec- 
dote. 

Cain,  when  he  made  his  appearance,  was  the  first  and  only  boy  in 
the  fair  young  world.  And  all  his  education  depended  on  his  inexperi- 
enced parents,  who  had  never  in  their  lives  seen  a  boy  until  they  saw 
Cain.  And  there  wasn't  an  educational  help  in  the  market.  There 
wasn't  an  alphabet  block  in  the  county;  not  even  a  Centennial  illus- 
trated handkerchief.  There  were  no  other  boys  in  the  republic,  to  teach 
young  Cain  to  lie,  and  swear,  and  smoke,  and  drink,  fight  and  steal, 
and  thus  develop  the  boy's  dormant  statesmanship,  and  prepare  him  for 
the  sterner  political  duties  of  his  maturer  years.  There  wasn't  a  pocket 
knife  in  the  universe  that  he  could  borrow — and  lose,  and  when  he 
wanted  to  cut  his  finger,  as  all  boys  must  do,  now  and  then,  he  had  to 
cut  it  with  a  clam  shell.  There  were  no  country  relations  upon  whom 
little  Cain  could  be  inflicted  for  two  or  three  weeks  at  a  time,  when  his 
wearied  parents  wanted  a  little  rest.  There  was  nothing  for  him  to  play 
with.  Adam  couldn't  show  him  how  to  make  a  kite.  He  had  a  much 
better  idea  of  angels'  wings  than  he  had  of  a  kite.  And  if  little  Cain 
had  even  asked  for  such  a  simple  bit  of  mechanism  as  a  shinny  club, 
Adam  would  have  gone  out  into  the  depths  of  the  primeval  forest  and 
wept  in  sheer  mortification  and  helpless,  confessed  ignorance. 

I  don't  wonder  that  Cain  turned  out  bad.  I  always  said  he  would. 
For  his  entire  education  depended  upon  a  most  ignorant  man,  a  man  in 
the  very  palmiest  days  of  his  ignorance,  who  couldn't  have  known  less  if 


152  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

he  had  tried  all  his  life  on  a  high  salary  and  had  a  man  to  help  him. 
And  the  boy's  education  had  to  be  conducted  entirely  upon  the  catechet- 
ical system;  only,  in  this  instance,  the  boy  pupil  asked  the  questions, 
and  his  parent  teachers,  heaven  help  them,  tried  to  answer  them.  And 
they  had  to  answer  at  them.  For  they  could  not  take  refuge  from  the 
steady  stream  of  questions  that  poured  in  upon  them  day  after  day,  by 
interpolating  a  fairy  story,  as  you  do  when  your  boy  asks  you  questions 
about  something  of  which  you  never  heard.  For  how  could  Adam  begin, 
"  Once  upon  a  time,"  when  with  one  quick,  incisive  question,  Cain 
could  pin  him  right  back  against  the  dead  wall  of  creation,  arid  make 
him  either  specify  exactly  what  time,  or  acknowledge  the  fraud?  How 
could  Eve  tell  him  about  "Jack  and  the  beanstalk,"  when  Cain,  fairly 
crazy  for  some  one  to  play  with,  knew  perfectly  well  there  was  not,  and 
never  had  been,  another  boy  on  the  plantation?  And  as  day  by  day 
Cain  brought  home  things  in  his  hands  about  which  to  ask  questions 
that  no  mortal  could  answer,  how  grateful  his  bewildered  parents  must 
have  been  that  he  had  no  pockets  in  which  to  transport  his  collections. 
For  many  generations  came  into  the  fair  young  world,  got  into  no  end 
of  trouble,  and  died  out  of  it,  before  a  boy's  pocket  solved  the  problem 
how  to  make  the  thing  contained  seven  times  greater  than  the  container. 

The  only  thing  that  saved  Adam  and  Eve  from  interrogational  insan- 
ity was  the  paucity  of  language.  If  little  Cain  had  possessed  the  verbal 
abundance  of  the  language  in  which  men  are  to-day  talked  to  death,  his 
father's  bald  head  would  have  gone  down  in  shining  flight  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth  to  escape  him,  leaving  Eve  to  look  after  the  stock,  save  the 
crop,  and  raise  her  boy  as  best  she  could.  Which  would  have  been  6,000 
years  ago,  as  to-day,  just  like  a  man. 

Because,  it  was  no  off-hand,  absent-minded  work  answering  questions 
about  things  in  those  spacious  old  days,  when  there  was  crowds  of  room, 
and  every  thing  grew  by  the  acre.  When  a  placid  but  exceedingly 
unanimous  looking  animal  went  rolling  by,  producing  the  general  effect 
of  an  eclipse,  and  Cain  would  shout, 

"  Oh,  lookee,  lookee  Pa!  what's  that?  " 

Then  the  patient  Adam,  trying  to  saw  enough  kitchen  wood  to  last 
over  Sunday,  with  a  piece  of  flint,  would  have  to  pause  and  gather  up 
words  enough  to  say: 

"  That,  my  son?  That  is  only  a  mastodon  giganteus;  he  has  a  bad 
look,  but  a  Christian  temper." 

And  then  presently: 

"  Oh,  pa!  pa!    What's  that  over  yon?  " 


THE  HAWKETE  MAN.  153 

'*  Oh,  bother/*  Adam  would  reply;  "it's  only  a  paleotherium,  mam- 
malia pachydermata."  [Laughter.] 

11  Oh,  yes;  theliocomeafterus.     Oh!  lookee,  lookee  at  this  'un!  " 

"  "Where,  Cainny?  Oh,  that  in  the  mud?  That's  only  an  acephala 
lamelli  branchiata.  It  won't  bite  you,  but  you  mustn't  eat  it.  It's 
poison  as  politics." 

"  Wheel    See  there!  see,  see,  see!     What's  him?" 

"  Oh,  that?  Looks  like  a  plesiosaurus;  keep  out  of  his  way;  he  has 
a  jaw  like  your  mother." 

11  Oh,  yes;  a  plenosserus.     And  what's  that  fellow,  poppy?" 

' '  That's, a  silurus  malaptorus.  Don't  you  go  near  him,  for  he  has  the 
disposition  of  a  Georgia  mule." 

"  Oh,  yes;  a  slapterus.     And  what's  this  little  one?" 

"Oh,  it's  nothing  but  an  aristolochioid.  Where  did  you  get  it? 
There,  now,  quit  throwing  stones  at  that  acanthopterygian;  do  you 
want  to  be  kicked  ?  And  keep  away  from  the  nothodenatrichomanoides. 
My  stars,  Eve!  where  did  lie  get  that  anonaceo-hydrocharideo-nymph- 
asoid?  Do  you  never  look  after  him  at  all?  Here,  you  Cain,  get  right 
away  down  from  there,  and  chase  that  megalosaurius  out  of  the  melon 
patch,  or  I'll  set  the  monopleuro  branchian  on  you."  [Laughter.] 

Just  think  of  it,  Christian  man  with  a  family  to  support,  with  last 
year's  stock  on  your  shelves,  and  a  draft  as  long  as  a  clothes-line  to  pay 
to-morrow!  Think  of  it,  woman  with  all  a  woman's  love  and  constancy, 
and  a  mother's  sympathetic  nature,  with  three  meals  a  day  365  times  a 
year  to  think  of,  and  the  flies  to  chase  out  of  the  sitting-room;  think,  if 
your  cherub  boy  was  the  only  boy  in  the  wide,  wide  world,  and  all  his 
questions  which  now  radiate  in  a  thousand  directions  among  other  boys, 
who  tell  him  lies  and  help  him  to  cut  his  eye-teeth,  were  focused  upon 
you!  Adam  had  only  one  consolation  that  has  been  denied  his  more 
remote  descendants.  His  boy  never  belonged  to  a  base  ball  club,  never 
smoked  cigarettes,  and  never  teased  his  father  from  the  first  of  Novem- 
ber till  the  last  of  March  for  a  pair  of  roller  skates. 

Well,  you  have  no  time  to  pity  Adam.  You  have  your  own  boy  to 
look  after.  Or,  your  neighbor  has  a  boy,  whom  you  can  look  after  much 
more  closely  than  his  mother  does,  and  much  more  to  your  own  satis- 
faction than  to  the  boy's  comfort. 

Your  boy  is,  as  Adam's  boy  was,  an  animal  that  asks  questions.  If 
there  were  any  truth  in  the  old  theory  of  the  transmigration  of  souls, 
when  a  boy  died  he  would  pass  into  an  interrogation  point.  And  he'd 
stay  there.  He'd  never  get  out  of  it;  for  he  never  gets  through  asking 
questions.  The  older  he  grows  the  more  he  asks,  and  the  more 


154  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

perplexing  his  questions  are,  and  the  more  unreasonable  he  is  about  want- 
ing them  answered  to  suit  himself.  Why,  the  oldest  boy  I  ever  knew  — 
he  was  fifty-seven  years  old,  and  I  went  to  school  to  him  —  could  and  did 
ask  the  longest,  hardest,  crookedest  questions  [Laughter],  that  no  fellow, 
who  used  to  trade  off  all  his  books  for  a  pair  of  skates  and  a  knife  with 
a  corkscrew  in  it,  could  answer.  And  when  his  questions  were  not 
answered  to  suit  him,  it  was  his  custom  —  a  custom  more  honored  in 
the  breeches,  we  used  to  think,  than  in  the  observance  —  to  take  up  a 
long,  slender,  but  exceedingly  tenacious  rod,  which  lay  ever  near  the 
big  dictionary,  and  smite  with  it  the  boy  whose  naturally  derived  Adamic 
ignorance  was  made  manifest. 

Ah,  me,  if  the  boy  could  only  do  as  he  is  done  by,  and  ferule  the  man 
or  the  woman  who  fails  to  reply  to  his  inquiries,  as  he  is  himself  cor- 
rected for  similar  shortcomings,  what  a  valley  of  tears,  what  a  literally 
howling  wilderness  he  could  and  would  make  of  this  world.  [Laughter.] 

Your  boy,  askingto-day  pretty  much  the  same  questions,  with  heaven 
knows  how  many  additional  ones,  that  Adam's  boy  did,  ist  old,  every 
time  he  asks  one  that  you  don't  know  any  thing  about,  just  as  Adam 
told  Cain  fifty  times  a  day,  that  he  will  know  all  about  it  when  he  is  a 
man.  And  so  from  the  days  of  Cain  down  to  the  present  wickeder  gen- 
eration of  boys,  the  boy  ever  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  he  will  be  a 
man  and  know  every  thing. 

And  now,  not  entirely  ceasing  to  ask  questions,  your  boy  begins  to 
answer  them,  until  you  stand  amazed  at  the  breadth  and  depth  of  his 
knowledge.  He  asks  questions  and  gets  answers  of  teachers  that  you  and 
the  school  board  know  not  of.  Day  by  day,  great  unprinted  books,  upon 
the  broad  pages  of  which  the  hand  of  nature  has  traced  characters  that 
only  a  boy  can  read,  are  spread  out  before  him.  He  knows  now  where 
the  first  snow-drop  lifts  its  tiny  head,  a  pearl  on  the  bosom  of  the  barren 
earth,  in  the  spring;  he  knows  where  the  last  Indian  pink  lingers,  a 
flame  in  the  brown  and  rustling  woods,  in  the  autumn  days.  His  pockets 
are  cabinets,  from  which  he  drags  curious  fossils  that  he  does  not  know 
the  names  of;  monstrous  and  hideous  beetles  and  bugs  and  things  that 
you  never  saw  before,  and  for  which  he  has  appropriate  names  of  his  own. 
He  knows  where  there  are  three  oriole's  nests,  and  so  far  back  as  you  can 
remember,  you  never  saw  an  oriole's  nest  in  your  life.  He  can  tell  you 
how  to  distinguish  the  good  mushrooms  from  the  poisonous  ones,  and 
poison  grapes  from  good  ones,  and  how  he  ever  found  out,  except  by  eat- 
ing both  kinds,  is  a  mystery  to  his  mother.  Every  root,  bud,  leaf,  berry 
or  bark,  that  will  make  any  bitter,  horrible,  semi-poisonous  tea,  reputed 
to  have  marvelous  medicinal  virtues,  he  knows  where  to  find,  and  in  the 


THE  EAWKEYE  MAN.  155 

season  he  does  find,  and  brings  home,  and  all  but  sends  the  entire  family 
to  the  cemetery  by  making  practical  tests  of  his  teas. 

And  as  his  knowledge  broadens,  his  human  superstition  develops 
itself.  He  has  a  formula,  repeating  which  nine  times  a  day,  while 
pointing  his  finger  fixedly  toward  the  sun,  will  cause  warts  to  disappear 
from  the  hand, -or,  to  use  his  own  expression,  will  "knock  warts." 
[Laughter.]  If  the  eight-day  clock  at  home  tells  him  it  is  two  o'clock, 
and  the  flying  leaves  of  the  dandelion  declare  it  is  half -past  five,  he  will 
stand  or  fall  with  the  dandelion. 

He  has  a  formula,  by  which  any  thing  that  has  been  lost  may  be 
found.  He  has,  above  all  things,  a  natural,  infallible  instinct  for  the 
woods,  and  can  no  more  be  lost  in  them  than  a  squirrel.  If  the  cow 
does  not  come  home  —  and  if  she  is  a  town  cow,  like  a  town  man,  she 
does  not  come  home,  three  nights  in  the  week — you  lose  half  a  day 
of  valuable  time  looking  for  her.  Then  you  pay  a  man  three  dollars  to 
look  for  her  two  days  longer,  or  so  long  as  the  appropriation  holds  out. 
Finally,  a  quarter  sends  a  boy  to  the  woods;  he  comes  back  at  milking 
time,  whistling  the  tune  that  no  man  ever  imitated,  and  the  cow  ambles 
contentedly  along  before  him. 

He  has  one  particular  marble  which  he  regards  with  about  the  same 
superstitious  reverence  that  a  pagan  does  his  idol,  and  his  Sunday-school 
teacher  can't  drive  it  out  of  him,  either.  Carnelian,  crystal,  bull's  eye, 
china,  pottery,  boly,  blood  alley,  or  commie,  whatever  he  may  call  it, 
there  is  "luck  in  it."  When  he  loses  this  marble,  he  sees  panic  and 
bankruptcy  ahead  of  him,  and  retires  from  business  prudently,  before 
the  crash  comes,  failing,  in  true  centennial  style,  with  both  pockets  and 
a  cigar  box  full  of  winnings,  and  a  creditors' meeting  in  the  back  room. 

A  boy's  world  is  open  to  no  one  but  a  boy.  You  never  really  revisit 
the  glimpses  of  your  boyhood,  much  as  you  may  dream  of  it.  After  you 
get  into  a  tail  coat,  and  tight  boots,  you  never  again  set  foot  in  boy 
world.  You  lose  this  marvelous  instinct  for  the  woods,  you  can't  tell  a 
pig-nut  tree  from  a  pecan;  you  can't  make  friends  with  strange  dogs; 
you  can't  make  the  terrific  noises  with  your  mouth,  you  can't  invent  the 
inimitable  signals  or  the  characteristic  catchwords  of  boyhood. 

He  is  getting  on,  is  your  boy.  He  reaches  the  dime-novel  age.  He 
wants  to  be  a  missionary.  Or  a  pirate.  So  far  as  he  expresses  any  pref- 
erence, he  would  rather  be  a  pirate,  an  occupation  in  which  there  are 
more  chances  for  making  money,  and  fewer  opportunities  for  being 
devoured.  He  develops  a  yearning  love  for  school  and  study  about  this 
time,  also,  and  every  time  he  dreams  of  being  a  pirate  he  dreams  of 
hanging  his  dear  teacher  at  the  yard  arm  in  the  presence  of  the 


156  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

delighted  scholars.  His  voice  develops,  even  more  rapidly  and  thor- 
oughly than  his  morals.  In  the  yard,  on  the  house  top,  down  the 
street,  around  the  corner;  wherever  there  is  a  patch  of  ice  big  enough 
for  him  to  break  his  neck  on,  or  a  pond  of  water  deep  enough  to  drown 
in,  the  voice  of  your  boy  is  heard.  He  whispers  in  a  shout,  and  con- 
verses, in  ordinary,  confidential  moments,  in  a  shriek.  He  exchanges 
bits  of  back-fence  gossip  about  his  father's  domestic  matters,  with  the 
boy  living  in  the  adjacent  township,  to  which  interesting  revelations  of 
home-life  the  intermediate  neighborhood  listens  with  intense  satisfac- 
tion, and  the  two  home  circles  in  helpless  dismay.  He  has  an  uncon- 
querable hatred  for  company,  and  an  aversion  for  walking  down  stairs. 
For  a  year  or  two  his  feet  never  touch  the  stairway  in  his  descent,  and 
his  habit  of  polishing  the  stair  rail  by  using  it  as-  a  passenger  tramway, 
soon  breaks  the  other  members  of  the  family  of  the  careless  habit  of  set- 
ting the  hall  lamp  or  the  water  pitcher  on  the  baluster  post.  He  wears 
the  same  size  boot  as  his  father;  and  on  the  dryest,  dustiest  days  in  the 
year,  always  manages  to  convey  some  mud  on  the  carpets.  He  carefully 
steps  over  the  door  mat,  and  until  he  is  about  seventeen  years  old,  he 
actually  never  knew  there  was  a  scraper  at  the  front  porch. 

About  this  time,  bold  but  inartistic  pencil  sketches  break  out  mys- 
teriously on  the  alluring  background  of  the  wall  paper.  He  asks,  with 
great  regularity,  alarming  frequency  and  growing  diffidence,  for  a  new 
hat.  You  might  as  well  buy  him  a  new  disposition.  He  wears  his  hat 
in  the  air  and  on  the  ground  far  more  than  he  does  on  his  head,  and 
he  never  hangs  it  up  that  he  doesn't  pull  the  hook  through  the  crown; 
unless  the  hook  breaks  off  or  the  hat  rack  pulls  over. 

He  is  a  perfect  Robinson  Crusoe  in  inventive  genius.  He  can  make 
a  kite  that  will  fly  higher  and  pull  harder  than  a  balloon.  He  can,  and, 
011  occasion,  will,  take  out  a  couple  of  the  pantry  shelves  and  make  a 
sled  that  is  amazement  itself.  The  mouse-trap  he  builds  out  of  the 
water  pitcher  and  the  family  Bible  is  a  marvel  of  mechanical  ingenuity. 
So  is  the  excuse  he  gives  for  such  a  selection  of  raw  material.  When 
suddenly,  some  Monday  morning,  the  clothes  line,  without  any  just  or 
apparent  cause  or  provocation,  shrinks  sixteen  feet,  philosophy  cannot 
make  you  believe  that  Professor  Tice  did  it  with  his  little  barometer. 
Because,  far  down  the  dusty  street,  you  can  see  Tom  in  the  dim  distance, 
driving  a  prancing  team,  six-in-hand,  with  the  missing  link. 

You  send  your  boy  on  an  errand.  There  are  three  ladies  in  the  parlor. 
You  have  waited  as  long  as  you  can,  in  all  courtesy,  for  them  to  go. 
They  have  developed  alarming  symptoms  of  staying  to  tea.  And  you 
know  there  aren't  half  enough  strawberries  to  go  around.  It  is  only  a 


TEE  HAWKEYE  MAN.  157 

three  minutes'  walk  to  the  grocery,  however,  and  Tom  sets  off  like  a 
rocket,  and  you  are  so  pleased  with  his  celerity  and  ready  good  nature 
that  you  want  to  run  after  him  and  kiss  him.  He  is  gone  a  long  time, 
however.  Ten  minutes  become  fifteen,  fifteen  grow  into  twenty;  the 
twenty  swell  into  the  half  hour,  and  your  guests  exchange  very  signifi- 
cant glances  as  the  half  becomes  three-quarters.  Your  boy  returns  at 
last.  Apprehension  in  his  downcast  eyes,  humility  in  his  laggard  step, 
penitence  in  the  appealing  slouch  of  his  battered  hat,  and  a  pound  and 
a  half  of  shingle  nails  in  his  hands. 

" Mother,"  he  says,  "what  else  was  it  you  told  me  to  get  besides  the 
nails  ?"  [Laughter.]  And  while  you  are  counting  your  scanty  store  of 
berries  to  make  them  go  round  without  a  fraction,  you  hear  Tom  out  in 
the  back  yard  whistling  and  hammering  away,  building  a  dog  house 
with  the  nails  you  never  told  him  to  get. 

Poor  Tom,  he  loves  at  this  age  quite  as  ardently  as  he  makes  mistakes 
and  mischief.  And  he  is  repulsed  quite  as  ardently  as  he  makes  love. 
If  he  hugs  his  sister,  he  musses  her  ruffle,  and  gets  cuffed  for  it.  Two 
hours  later,  another  boy,  not  more  than  twenty-two  or  twenty-three 
years  older  than  Tom,  some  neighbor's  Tom,  will  come  in,  and  will  just 
make  the  most  hopeless,  terrible,  chaotic  wreck  of  that  ruffle  that  lace 
or  footing  can  be  distorted  into.  And  the  only  reproof  he  gets  is  the 
reproachful  murmur,  "Must  he  go  so  soon?"  [Laughter]  when  he 
doesn't  make  a  movement  to  go  until  he  hears  the  alarm  clock  go  off 
upstairs  and  the  old  gentleman  in  the  adjoining  room  banging  around 
building  the  morning  fires,  and  loudly  wondering  if  young  Mr.  Bostwick 
is  going  to  stay  to  breakfast? 

Tom  is  at  this  age  set  in  deadly  enmity  against  company,  which  he 
soon  learns  to  regard  as  his  mortal  foe.  He  regards  company  as  a  mys- 
terious and  eminently  respectable  delegation  that  always  stays  to  dinner, 
invariably  crowds  him  to  the  second  table,  never  leaves  him  any  of  the 
pie,  and  generally  makes  him  late  for  school.  Naturally,  he  learns  to 
love  refined  society,  but  in  a  conservative,  non-committal  sort  of  a  way, 
dissembling  his  love  so  effectually  that  even  his  parents  never  dream  of 
its  existence  until  it  is  gone. 

Poor  Tom,  his  life  is  not  all  comedy  at  this  period.  Go  up  to  your 
boy's  room  some  night,  and  his  sleeping  face  will  preach  you  a  sermon 
on  the  griefs  and  troubles  that  sometimes  weigh  his  little  heart  down 
almost  to  breaking,  more  eloquently  than  the  lips  of  a  Spurgeon  could 
picture  them.  The  curtain  has  fallen  on  one  day's  act  in  the  drama  of 
his  active  little  life.  The  restless  feet  that  all  day  long  have  pattered 
so  far — down  dusty  streets,  over  scorching  pavements,  through  long 


158  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

stretches  of  quiet  Wooded  lanes,  along  the  winding  cattle  paths  in  the 
deep,  silent  woods;  that  have  dabbled  in  the  cool  brook  where  it 
wrangles  and  scolds  over  the  shining  pebbles,  that  have  filled  your 
house  with  noise  and  dust  and  racket,  are  still.  The  stained  hand  out- 
side the  sheet  is  soiled  and  rough,  and  the  cut  finger  with  the  rude 
bandage  of  the  boy's  own  surgery,  pleads  with  a  mute,  effective  pathos 
of  its  own,  for  the  mischievous  hand  that  is  never  idle.  On  the  brown 
cheek  the  trace  of  a  tear  marks  the  piteous  close  of  the  day's  troubles, 
the  closing  scene  in  a  troubled  little  drama;  trouble  at  school  with 
books  that  were  too  many  for  him;  trouble  with  temptations  to 
have  unlawful  fun  that  were  too  strong  for  him,  as  they  are  frequently 
too  strong  for  his  father ;  trouble  in  the  street  with  boys  that  were 
too  big  for  him ;  and  at  last,  in  his  home,  in  his  castle,  his  refuge, 
trouble  has  pursued  him,  until,  feeling  utterly  friendless  and  in  every 
body's  way,  he  has  crawled  off  to  the  dismantled  den,  dignified  usually 
by  the  title  of  "  the  boy's  room,"  and  his  overcharged  heart  has  welled 
up  into  his  eyes,  and  his  last  waking  breath  has  broken  into  a  sob,  and 
just  as  he  begins  to  think  that  after  all,  life  is  only  one  broad  sea  of 
troubles,  whose  restless  billows,  in  never-ending  succession,  break  and 
beat  and  double  and  dash  upon  the  short  shore  line  of  a  boy's  life, 
he  has  drifted  away  into  the  wonderland  of  a  boy's  sleep,  where  fairy 
fingers  picture  his  dreams.  [Applause.] 

How  soundly,  deeply,  peacefully  he  sleeps.  No  mother,  who  has 
never  dragged  a  sleepy  boy  off  the  lounge  at  9  o'clock,  and  hauled  him 
off  upstairs  to  bed,  can  know  with  what  a  herculean  grip  a  square 
sleep  takes  hold  of  a  boy's  senses,  nor  how  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
limp  and  nerveless  it  makes  him;  nor  how,  in  direct  antagonism  to  all 
established  laws  of  anatomy,  it  develops  joints  that  work  both  ways,  all 
the  way  up  and  down  that  boy. 

And  what  pen  can  portray  the  wonderful  enchantments  of  a  boy's 
dreamland  !  No  marvelous  visions  wrought  by  the  weird,  strange  power 
of  hasheesh,  no  dreams  that  come  to  the  sleep  of  jaded  woman  or  tired 
man,  no  ghastly  specters  that  dance  attendance  upon  cold  mince  pie, 
but  shrink  into  tiresome,  stale,  and  trifling  commonplaces  compared 
with  the  marvelous,  the  grotesque,  the  wonderful,  the  terrible,  the 
beautiful  and  the  enchanting  scenes  and  people  of  a  boy's  dreamland. 
This  may  be  owing,  in  a  great  measure,  to  the  fact  that  the  boy  never 
relates  his  dream  until  all  the  other  members  of  the  family  have  related 
theirs;  and  then  he  comes  in,  like  a  back  county,  with  the  necessary 
majority;  like  the  directory  of  a  western  city,  following  the  census  of  a 
rival  town. 


THE  HAWKETE  MAN.  159 

Tom  is  a  miniature  Ishmaelite  at  this  period  of  his  career.  His  hand 
is  against  every  man,  and  about  every  man's  hand,  and  nearly  every 
woman's  hand,  is  against  him,  off  and  on.  Often,  and  then  the  iron 
enters  his  soul,  the  hand  that  is  against  him  holds  the  slipper.  He 
wears  his  mother's  slipper  on  his  jacket  quite  as  often  as  she  wears  it  on 
her  foot.  And  this  is  all  wrong,  unchristian  and  impolitic.  It  spreads 
the  slipper  and  discourages  the  boy.  When  he  reads  in  his  Sunday- 
school  lesson  that  the  wicked  stand  in  slippery  places,  he  takes  it  as  a 
direct  personal  reference,  and  he  is  affronted,  and  may  be  the  seeds  of 
atheism  are  implanted  in  his  breast.  Moreover,  this  repeated  applica- 
tion of  the  slipper  not  only  sours  his  temper,  and  gives  a  bias  to  his 
moral  ideas,  but  it  sharpens  his  wits.  How  many  a  Christian  mother, 
her  soft  eyes  swimming  in  tears  of  real  pain  that  plashed  up  from  the 
depths  of  a  loving  heart,  as  she  bent  over  her  wayward  boy  until  his 
heart-rending  wails  and  piteous  shrieks  drowned  her  own  choking,  sym- 
pathetic sobs,  has  been  wasting  her  strength,  and  wearing  out  a  good 
slipper,  and  pouring  out  all  that  priceless  flood  of  mother  love  and  duty 
and  pity  and  tender  sympathy  upon  a  concealed  atlas  back,  or  a  Saginaw 
shingle.  [Laughter.] 

It  is  a  historical  fact  that  no  boy  is  ever  whipped  twice  for  precisely 
the  same  offense.  He  varies  and  improves  a  little  on  every  repetition  of 
the  prank,  until  at  last  he  reaches  a  point  where  detection  is  almost 
impossible.  He  is  a  big  boy  then,  and  glides  almost  imperceptibly  from 
the  discipline  of  his  father,  under  the  surveillance  of  the  police. 

By  easy  stages  he  passes  into  the  uncomfortable  period  of  boyhood. 
His  jacket  develops  into  a  tail-coat.  The  boy  of  to-day,  who  is  slipped 
into  a  hollow,  abbreviated  mockery  of  a  tail-coat,  when  he  is  taken  out 
of  long  dresses,  has  no  idea — not  the  faintest  conception  of  the  grandeur, 
the  momentous  importance  of  the  epoch  in  a  boy's  life,  that  was  marked 
by  the  transition  from  the  old-fashioned  cadet  roundabout  to  the  tail- 
coat. It  is  an  experience  that  heaven,  ever  chary  of  its  choicest 
blessings,  and  mindful  of  the  decadence  of  the  race  of  boys,  has  not 
vouchsafed  to  the  untoward,  forsaken  boys  of  this  wicked  generation. 
When  the  roundabout  went  out  of  fashion,  the  heroic  race  of  boys  passed 
away  from  earth,  and  weeping  nature  sobbed  and  broke  the  moulds. 
The  fashion  that  started  a  boy  of  six  years  on  his  pilgrimage  of  life  in  a 
miniature  edition  of  his  father's  coat,  marked  a  period  of  retrogression 
in  the  affairs  of  men,  and  stamped  a  decaying  and  degenerate  race. 
There  are  no  boys  now,  or  very  few,  at  least,  such  as  peopled  the  grand 
old  earth  when  the  men  of  our  age  were  boys.  And  that  it  is  so,  society 
is  to  be  congratulated.  The  step  from  the  roundabout  to  the  tail-coat 


160  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

was  a  leap  in  life.  It  was  the  boy  lulus,  doffing  the  prcetexta  and 
flinging  upon  his  shoulders  the  toga  virilis  of  Julius;  Patroclus,  donning 
the  armor  of  Achilles,  in  which  to  go  forth  and  be  Hectored  to  death. 

Tom  is  slow  to  realize  the  grandeur  of  that  tail-coat,  however,  on  its 
trial  trip.  How  differently  it  feels  from  his  good,  snug-fitting,  comfort- 
able old  jacket.  It  fits  him  too  much  in  every  direction,  he  knows. 
Every  now  and  then  he  stops  with  a  gasp  of  terror,  feeling  positive,  from 
the  awful  sensation  ^of  nothingness  about  the  neck,  that  the  entire 
collar  has  fallen  of!  in  the  street.  The  tails  are  prairies,  the  pockets  are 
caverns,  and  the  back  is  one  vast,  illimitable,  stretching  waste.  How 
Tom  sidles  along  as  close  to  the  fence  as  he  can  scrape,  and  what  a  wary 
eye  he  keeps  in  every  direction  for  other  boys.  \Vhen  he  forgets  the 
school,  he  is  half  tempted  to  feel  proud  of  his  toga;  but  when  he  thinks 
of  the  boys,  and  the  reception  that  awaits  him,  his  heart  sinks,  and  he 
is  tempted  to  go  back  home,  sneak  up  stairs,  and  rescue  his  worn,  old 
jacket  from  the  rag-bag.  He  glances  in  terror  at  his  distorted  shadow 
on  the  fence,  and,  confident  that  it  is  a  faithful  outline  of  his  figure,  he 
knows  that  he  has  worn  his  father's  coat  off  by  mistake. 

He  tries  various  methods  of  bottoning  his  coat  to  make  it  conform 
more  harmoniously  to  his  figure  and  his  ideas  of  the  eternal  fitness  of 
things.  He  buttons  just  the  lower  button,  and  immediately  it  flies 
all  abroad  at  the  shoulders,  and  he  beholds  himself  an  exaggerated  man- 
nikin  of  "Cap'n  Cuttle."  Then  he  fastens  just  the  upper  button,  and 
the  frantic  tails  flap  and  flutter  like  a  clothes-line  in  a  cyclone.  Then 
he  buttons  it  all  up,  a  la  militaire,  and  tries  to  look  soldierly,  but  the 
effect  is  so  theological-studently  that  it  frightens  him  until  his  heart 
stops  beating.  As  he  reaches  the  last  friendly  corner  that  shields  him 
from  the  pitiless  gaze  of  the  boys  he  can  hear  howling  and  shrieking 
not  fifty  yards  away,  he  pauses  to  give  the  final  ajustment  to  the  manly 
and  unmanageable  raiment.  It  is  bigger  and  looser,  flappier  and  wrink- 
lier  than  ever.  New  and  startling  folds,  and  unexpected  wrinkles,  and 
uncontemplated  bulges  develop  themselves,  like  masked  batteries,  just 
when  and  where  the  effect  will  be  most  demoralizing.  And  a  new  hor- 
ror discloses  itself  at  this  trying  and  awful  juncture.  He  wants  to  lie 
down  on  the  side  walk  and  try  to  die.  For  the  first  time  he  notices  the 
color  of  his  coat.  Hideous  !  He  has  been  duped,  swindled,  betrayed — 
made  a  monstrous  idiot  by  that  silver-tongued  salesman,  who  has  palmed 
off  upon  him  a  coat  2,000  years  old;  a  coat  that  the  most  sweetly  enthu- 
siastic and  terribly  misinformed  women's  missionary  society  would  hesi- 
tate to  offer  a  wild  Hottentot;  and  which  the  most  benighted,  old- 
fashioned  Hottentot  that  ever  disdained  clothes,  would  certainly  blush 


THE  EAWKETE  MAJf.  1G1 

to  wear  in  the  dark,  and  would  probably  decline  with  thanks.  Oh,  mad- 
ness !  The  color  is  no  color.  It  is  all  colors.  It  is  a  brindle — a  verita- 
ble, undeniable  brindle.  There  must  have  been  a  fabulous  amount  of 
brindle  cloth  made  up  into  boys*  first  coats,  sixteen  or  eighteen  or  nine- 
teen years  ago,  because  out  of  894 — I  like  to  be  exact  in  the  use  of  fig- 
ures, because  nothing  else  in  the  world  lends  such  an  air  of  profound 
truthfulness  to  a  discourse — out  of  894  boys  I  knew  in  the  first  tail-coat 
period,  893  came  to  school  in  brindle  coats.  And  the  other  one — the 
894th  boy — made  his  wretched  debut  in  a  bottle-green  toga,  with  dread- 
ful, glaring  brass  buttons.  He  left  school  very  suddenly,  and  we  always 
believed  that  the  angels  saw  him  in  that  coat,  and  ran  away  with  him. 
But  Tom,  shivering  with  apprehension,  and  faint  with  mortification  over 
the  discovery  of  this  HCAV  horror,  gives  one  last  despairing  scrooch  of  his 
shoulders,  to  make  the  coat  look  shorter,  and,  with  a  final  frantic  tug  at 
the  tails,  to  make  it  appear  longer,  steps  out  from  the  protecting  asgis 
of  the  corner,  is  stunned  with  a  vocal  hurricane  of — 

"  Oh,  what  a  coat!"  and  his  cup  of  misery  is  as  full  as  a  rag-bag  in 
three  minutes. 

Passing  into  the  tail-coat  period,  Tom  awakens  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
broad  physical  truth,  that  he  has  hands.  He  is  'not  very  positive  in  .his 
own  mind  how  many.  At  times  he  is  ready  to  swear  to  an  even  two, 
one  pair  ;  good  hand.  Again,  when  cruel  fate  and  the  non-appearance 
of  some  one's  else  brother  has  compelled  him  to  accompany  his  sister  to 
a  church  sociable,  he  can  see  eleven  ;  and  as  he  sits  bolt  upright  in  the 
grimmest  of  straight-back  chairs,  plastered  right  up  against  the  wall,  as 
the  "sociable"  custom  is,  or  used  to  be,  trying  to  find  enough  unoccu- 
pied pockets  in  which  to  sequester  all  his  hands,  he  is  dimly  conscious 
that  hands  should  come  in  pairs,  and  vaguely  wonders,  if  he  has  only 
five  pair  of  regularly  ordained  hands,  where  this  o'dd  hand  came  from. 
And  hitherto,  Tom  has  been  content  to  encase  his  feet  in  any  thing  that 
would  stay  on  them.  Now,  however,  he  has  an  eye  for  a  glove-fitting 
boot,  and  learns  to  wreath  his  face  in  smiles,  hollow,  heartless,  deceitful 
smiles,  while  his  boots  are  as  full  of  agony  as  a  broken  heart,  and  his 
tortured  feet  cry  out  for  vengeance  upon  the  shoemaker,  and  make  Tom 
feel  that  life  is  a  hollow  mockery,  and  there  is  nothing  real  but  soft 
corns  and  bunions. 

And:  His  mother  never  cuts  his  hair  again.  Never.  When  Tom 
assumes  the  manly  gown,  she  has  looked  her  last  upon  his  head,  with 
trimming  ideas.  His  hair  will  be  trimmed  and  clipped,  barberously  it 
may  be,  but  she  will  not  be  accessory  before  the  fact.  She  may  some- 
times long  to  have  her  boy  kneel  down  before  her,  while  she  gnaws 
11 


162  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

around  his  terrified  locks  with  a  pair  of  scissors  that  were  sharpened 
when  they  were  made;  and  have  since  then  cut  acres  of  calico,  and  miles 
and  miles  of  paper,  and  great  stretches  of  cloth,  and  snarls  and  coils  of 
string,  and  furlongs  of  lamp  wick;  and  have  snuffed  candles;  and  dug 
refractory  corks  out  of  the  family  ink  bottle;  and  punched  holes  in 
skate-straps;  and  trimmed  the  family  nails;  and  have  even  done  their 
level  best,  at  the  annual  struggle,  to  cut  stove-pipe  lengths  in  two;  and 
have  successfully  opened  oyster  and  fruit  cans;  and  pried  up  carpet 
tacks;  and  have  many  a  time  and  oft  gone  snarlingly  and  toilsomely 
around  Tom's  head,  and  made  him  an  object  of  terror  to  the  children  in 
the  street,  and  made  him  look  so  much  like  a  yearling  colt  with  the  run 
of  a  bur  pasture,  that  people  have  been  afraid  to  approach  him  too  sud- 
denly, lest  he  should  jump  through  his  collar  and  run  away.  [Applause.} 
He  feels,  too,  the  dawning  consciousness  of  another  grand  truth  in 
the  human  economy.  It  dawns  upon  his  deepening  intelligence  with 
the  inherent  strength  and  the  unquestioned  truth  of  a  new  revelation, 
that  man's  upper  lip  was  designed  by  nature  for  a  mustache  pasture. 
How  tenderly  reserved  he  is  when  he  is  brooding  over  this  momentous 
discovery.  With  what  exquisite  caution  and  delicacy  are  his  primal 
investigations  conducted.  In  his  microscopical  researches  it  appears  to 
him  that  the  down  on  his  upper  lip  is  certainly  more  determined  down, 
more  positive,  more  pronounced,  more  individual  fuzz  than  that  which 
vegetates  in  neglected  tenderness  upon  his  cheeks.  He  makes  cautious 
explorations  along  the  land  of  promise  with  the  tip  of  his  tenderest 
finger,  delicately  backing  up  the  grade  the  wrong  way,  going  always 
against  the  grain,  that  he  may  the  more  readily  detect  the  slightest 
symptom  of  an  uprising  by  the  first  feeling  of  velvety  resistance.  And 
day  by  day  he  is  more  and  more  firmly  convinced  that  there  is  in  his  lip 
the  primordial  germs,  the  protoplasm  of  a  glory  that  will,  in  its  f  till 
development,  eclipse  even  the  majesty  and  grandeur  of  his  first  tail-coat. 
And  in  the  first  dawning  consciousness  that  the  mustache  is  there,  like 
the  vote,  and  only  needs  to  be  brought  out,  how  often  Tom  walks  down 
to  the  barber  shop,  gazes  longingly  in  at  the  window,  and  walks  past. 
And  how  often,  when  he  musters  up  sufficient  courage  to  go  in,  and 
climbs  into  the  chair,  and  is  just  on  the  point  of  huskily  whispering  to- 
the  barber  that  he  would  like  a  shave,  the  entrance  of  a  man  with  a 
beard  like  Frederick  Barbarossa,  frightens  away  his  resolution,  and  he 
has  his  hair  cut  again.  The  third  time  that  week,  and  it  is  so  short 
that  the  barber  has  to  hold  it  with  his  teeth  while  he  files  it  off,  and 
parts  it  with  a  straight  edge  and  a  scratch  awl.  Naturally,  driven 
from  the  barber  chair,  Tom  casts  longing  eyes  upon  the  ancestral  shav- 
ing machinery  at  home.  And  who  shall  say  by  what  means  he  at  length 


THE  HAWKEYS  :,: AN.  _    .  163 

obtains  possession  of  the  paternal  razor?  No  one.  Nobody  knows.  No- 
body ever  did  know.  Even  the  searching  investigation  that  always 
follows  the  paternal  demand  for  the  immediate  extradition  of  whoever 
opened  a  fruit  can  with  that  razor,  which  always  follows  Tom's  first 
shave,  is  always,  and  ever  will  be,  barren  of  results. 

All  that  we  know  about  it  is,  that  Tom  holds  the  razor  in  his  hand 
about  a  minute,  wondering  what  to  do  with  it,  before  the  blade  falls  across 
his  fingers  and  cuts  every  one  of  them.  First  blood  claimed  and  allowed, 
for  the  razor.  Then  he  straps  the  razor  furiously.  Or,  rather,  he  razors  the 
strap.  He  slashes  and  cuts  that  passive  instrument  in  as  many  directions  as 
he  can  make  motions  with  the  razor.  He  would  cut  it  of  tener  if  the  strap 
lasted  longer.  Then  he  nicks  the  razor  against  the  side  of  the  mug.  Then 
he  drops  it  on  the  floor  and  steps  on  it  and  nicks  it  again.  They  are  small 
nicks,  not  so  large  by  half  as  a  saw  tooth,  and  he  flatters  himself  his 
father  will  never  see  them.  Then  he  soaks  the  razor  in  hot  water,  as 
he  has  seen  his  father  do.  Then  he  takes  it  out,  at  a  temperature  any- 
where under  980°  Fahrenheit,  and  lays  it  against  his  cheek,  and  raises  a 
blister  there  the  size  of  the  razor,  as  he  never  saw  his  father  do,  but  as 
his  father  most  assuredly  did,  many,  many  years  before  Tom  met  him. 
Then  he  makes  a  variety  of  indescribable  grimaces  and  labial  contor- 
tions in  a  frenzied  effort  to  get  his  upper  lip  into  approachable  shape, 
and,  at  last,  the  first  offer  he  makes  at  his  embryo  mustache  he  slashes 
his  nose  with  a  vicious  upper  cut.  He  gashes  the  corners  of  his  mouth; 
wherever  those  nicks  touch  his  cheek  they  leave  a  scratch  apiece,  and  he 
learns  what  a  good  nick  in  a  razor  is  for,  and  at  last  when  he  lays  the 
blood-stained  weapon  down,  his  gory  lip  looks  as  though  it  had  just 
come  out  of  a  long,  stubborn,  exciting  contest  with  a  straw-cutter. 

But  he  learns  to  shave,  after  a  while — just  before  he  cuts  his  lip 
clear  off.  He  has  to  take  quite  a  course  of  instruction,  however,  in  that 
great  school  of  experience  about  which  the  old  philosopher  had  a  remark 
to  make.  It  is  a  grand  old  school;  the  only  school  at  which  men  will 
study  and  learn,  each  for  himself.  One  man's  experience  never  does 
another  man  any  good;  never  did  and  never  will  teach  another  man  any 
thing.  If  the  philosopher  had  said  that  it  was  a  hard  school,  but  that 
some  men  would  learn  at  no  other  than  this  grand  old  school  of  experi- 
ence, we  might  have  inferred  that  all  women,  and  most  boys,  and  a  few 
men  were  exempt  from  its  hard  teachings.  But  he  used  the  more  com- 
prehensive term,  if  you  remember  what  that  is,  and  took  us  all  in.  We 
have  all  been  there.  There  is  no  other  school,  in  fact.  Poor  little  Cain; 
dear,  lonesome,  wicked  little  Cain  —  I  know  it  isn't  fashionable  to  pet 
him;  I  know  it  is  popular  to  speak  harshly  and  savagely  about  our 


1G4  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AXD  PULPIT. 

eldest  brother,  when  the  fact  is  we  resemble  him  more  closely  in  dispo- 
sition than  any  other  member  of  the  family  —  poor  little  Cain  never  knew 
the  difference  between  his  father's  sunburned  nose  and  a  glowing  coal, 
until  he  had  pulled  the  one  and  picked  up  the  other.  And  Abel  had  to 
find  out  the  difference  in  the  same  way,  although  he  was  told  five  hun- 
dred times,  by  his  brother's  experience,  that  the  coal  would  burn  him 
and  the  nose  wouldn't.  And  Cain's  boy  wouldn't  believe  that  fire  was  any 
hotter  than  an  icicle,  until  he  had  made  a  digital  experiment,  and  under- 
stood why  they  called  it  fire.  And  so  Enoch  and  Methusaleh,  and  Moses, 
and  Daniel,  and  Solomon,  and  Caesar,  and  Napoleon,  and  "Washington, 
and  the  President,  and  the  governor,  and  the  mayor,  and  you  and  I 
have  all  of  us,  at  one  time  or  another,  in  one  way  or  another,  burned 
our  fingers  at  the  same  old  fires  that  have  scorched  human  fingers  in  the 
same  monotonous  old  ways,  at  the  same  reliable  old  stands,  for  the  past 
6,000  years,  and  all  the  verbal  instruction  between  here  and  the  silent 
grave  couldn't  teach  us  so  much,  or  teach  it  so  thoroughly,  as  one  well- 
directed  singe.  And  a  million  of  years  from  now  —  if  this  weary  old 
world  may  endure  so  long —  when  human  knowledge  shall  fall  a  little 
short  of  the  infinite,  and  all  the  lore  and  erudition  of  this  wonderful  age 
will  be  but  the  primer  of  that  day  of  light  —  the  baby  that  is  born  into 
that  world  of  knowledge  and  wisdom  and  progress,  rich  with  all  the 
years  of  human  experience,  will  cry  for  the  lamp,  and,  the  very  first  time 
that  opportunity  favors  it,  will  try  to  pull  the  flame  up  by  the  roots,  and 
will  know  just  as  much  as  ignorant,  untaught,  stupid  little  Cain  knew 
on  the  same  subject.  Year  after  year,  century  after  unfolding  century, 
how  true  it  is  that  the  lion  on  the  fence  is  always  bigger,  fiercer  and 
more  given  to  majestic  attitudes  and  dramatic  situations  than  the  lion 
in  the  tent.  And  yet  it  costs  us,  often  as  the  circus  comes  around,  fifty 
cents  to  find  that  out. 

But  while  we  have  been  moralizing,  Tom's  mustache  has  taken  a 
start.  It  has  attained  the  physical  density,  though  not  the  color,  by 
any  means,  of  the  Egyptian  darkness — it  can  be  felt ;  and  it  is  felt ; 
very  soft  felt.  The  world  begins  to  take  notice  of  the  new-comer ; 
and  Tom,  as  generations  of  Toms  before  him  have  done,  patiently 
endures  dark  hints  from  other  members  of  the  family  about  his  face 
being  dirty.  He  loftily  ignores  his  experienced  father's  suggestions 
that  he  should  perform  his  tonsorial  toilet  with  a  spoonful  of  cream 
and  the  family  cat.  When  his  sisters,  in  meekly  dissembled  ignorance, 
inquire,  "  Tom,  what  liave  you  on  your  lip  ?  "  he  is  austere,  as  becomes 
a  man  annoyed  by  the  frivolous  small  talk  of  women.  And  when  his 
younger  brother  takes  advantage  of  the  presence  of  a  numerous  company 


THE  UAWKETE  MAN  165 

in  the  house,  to  shriek  over  the  baluster  up  stairs,  apparently  to  any  boy 
any  where  this  side  of  China,  "  Tom's  a  raisin*  mustachers! "  Tom  smiles, 
a  wan,  neglected-orphan  smile  ;  a  smile  that  looks  as  though  it  had 
come  up  on  his  face  to  weep  over  the  barrenness  of  the  land  ;  a  perfect 
ghost  of  a  smile,  as  compared  with  the  rugged,  7x9  smiles  that  play 
like  animated  crescents  over  the  countenances  of  the  company.  But 
the  mustache  grows.  It  comes  on  apace;  very  short  in  the  middle,  very 
no  longer  at  the  ends,  and  very  blonde  all  round.  Whenever  you  see 
such  a  mustache,  do  not  laugh  at  it ;  do  not  point  at  it  the  slow, 
unmoving  finger  of  scorn.  Encourage  it;  speak  kindly  of  it;  affect 
admiration  for  it;  coax  it  along.  Pray  for  it — for  it  is  a  first.  They 
always  come  that  way.  And  when,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  it  has  devel- 
oped so  far  that  it  can  Jbe  pulled,  there  is*  all  the  agony  of  making  it 
take  color.  It  is  worse,  and  more  obstinate,  and  more  deliberate  than 
a  meershaum.  The  sun,  that  tans  Tom's  cheeks  and  blisters  his  nose, 
only  bleaches  his  mustache.  Nothing  ever  hastens  its  color  ;  nothing 
does  it  any  permanent  good  ;  nothing  but  patience,  and  faith,  and  per- 
sistent pulling. 

"With  all  the  comedy  there  is  about  it,  however,  this  is  the  grand 
period  of  a  boy's  life.  You  look  at  them,  with  their  careless,  easy,  nat- 
ural manners  and  movements  in  the  streets  and  on  the  base  ball  ground, 
and  their  marvelous,  systematic,  indescribable,  inimitable  and  complex 
awkwardness  in  your  parlors,  and  do  you  never  dream,  looking  at  these 
young  fellows,  of  the  overshadowing  destinies  awaiting  them,  the  mighty 
struggles  inappod  out  in  the  earnest  future  of  their  lives,  the  thrilling 
conquests  in  the  world  of  arms,  the  grander  triumphs  in  the  realm  of 
philosophy,  the  fadeless  laurels  in  the  empire  of  letters,  and  the  imper- 
ishable crowns  that  He  who  giveth  them  the  victory  binds  about 
their  brows,  that  wait  for  the  courage  and  ambition  of  these  boys? 
[Applause.] 

Why,  the  world  is  at  a  boy's  feet;  and  power  and  conquest  and  leader- 
ship slumber  in  his  rugged  arms  and  care-free  heart.  A  boy  sets  his 
ambition  at  whatever  mark  he  will — lofty  or  groveling,  as  he  may  elect — 
and  the  boy  who  resolutely  sets  his  heart  on  fame,  on  wealth,  on  power, 
on  what  he  will;  who  consecrates  himself  to  a  life  of  noble  endeavor,  and 
lofty  effort;  who  consentrates  every  faculty  of  his  mind  and  body  on  the 
attainment  of  his  one  darling  point;  who  brings  to  support  his  ambition, 
courage  and  industry  and  patience,  can  trample  on  genius;  for  these  are 
better  and  grander  than  genius;  and  he  will  begin  to  rise  above  his  fel- 
lows as  steadily  and  as  surely  as  the  sun  climbs  above  the  mountains. 


166  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Hannibal,  standing  before  the  Punic  altar  fires  and  in  the  lisping 
accents  of  childhood  swearing  eternal  hatred  to  Eome,  was  the  Hannibal 
at  twenty-four  years  commanding  the  army  that  swept  down  upon  Italy 
like  a  mountain  torrent,  and  shook  the  power  of  the  mistress  of  the 
world,  bid  her  defiance  at  her  own  gates,  while  affrighted  Eome  huddled 
and  cowered  under  the  protecting  shadows  of  her  walls.  [Applause.] 

Napoleon,  building  snow  forts  at  school  and  planning  mimic  battles 
with  his  playfellows,  was  the  lieutenant  of  artillery  at  sixteen  years, 
general  of  artillery  and. the  victor  of  Toulon  at  twenty-four,  and  at  last 
Emperor — not  by  the  paltry  accident  of  birth  which  might  happen  to 
any  man,  however  unworthy,  but  by  the  manhood  and  grace  of  his  own 
right  arm,  and  his  own  brain,  and  his  own  courage  and  dauntless  am- 
bition— Emperor,  with  his  foot  on  the  throat  of  prostrate  Europe.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Alexander,  daring  more  in  his  boyhood  than  his  warlike  father  could 
teach  him,  and  entering  upon  his  all  conquering  career  at  twenty-four, 
was  the  boy  whose  vaulting  ambition  only  paused  in  its  dazzling  flight 
when  the  world  lay  at  his  feet. 

And  the  fair-faced  soldiers  of  the  Empire,  they  who  rode  down  upon 
the  bayonets  of  the  English  squares  at  Waterl'oo,  when  the  earth  rocked 
beneath  their  feet,  and  the  incense  smoke  from  the  altars  of  the  battle 
god  shut  out  the  sun  and  sky  above  their  heads,  who,  with  their  young 
lives  streaming  from  their  gaping  wounds,  opened  their  pallid  lips  to 
cry,  "  Vive  L'Empereur,"  as  they  died  for  honor  and  France,  were  boys 
— schoolboys — the  boy  conscripts  of  France,  torn  from  their  homes  and 
their  schools  to  stay  the  failing  fortunes  of  the  last  grand  army,  and  the 
Empire  that  was  tottering  to  its  fall.  You  don't  know  how  soon  these 
happy-go-lucky  young  fellows,  making  summer  hideous  with  base  ball 
slang,  or  gliding  around  a  skating  rink  on  their  back,  may  hold  the 
State  and  its  destinies  in  their  grasp;  you  don't  know  how  soon  these 
boys  may  make  and  Write  the  history  of  the  hour;  how  soon,  they  alone, 
may  shape  events  and  guide  the  current  of  public  action;  how  soon  one 
of  them  may  run  away  with  your  daughter  or  borrow  money  of  you. 
[Laughter.] 

Certain  it  is,  there  is  one  thing  Tom  will  do,  just  about  this  period  of 
his  existence.  He  will  fall  in  love  with  somebody  before  his  mustache  is 
long  enough  to  waxv 

Perhaps  one  of  the  earliest  indications  of  this  event,  for  it  does  not 
always  break  out  in  the  same  manner,  is  a  sudden  and  alarming  increase 
in  the  number  and  variety  of  Tom's  neckties.  In  his  boxes  and  on  his 
dressing  case,  his  mother  is  constantly  startled  by  the  changing  and 


THE  HAWKEYE  MAN.  167 

increasing  assortment  of  the  display.  Monday  he  encircles  his  tender 
throat  with  a  lilac  knot,  fearfully  and  wonderfully  tied;  a  lavender  tie 
succeeds,  the  following  day;  Wednesday  is  graced  with  a  sweet  little 
tangle  of  pale,  pale  blue,  that  fades  at  a  breath;  Thursday  is  ushered  in 
with  a  scarf  of  delicate  pea  green,  of  wonderful  convolutions  and  suf- 
ficiently expansive,  by  the  aid  of  a  clean  collar,  to  conceal  any  little 
irregularity  in  Tom's  wash  day;  Friday  smiles  on  a  sailor's  knot  of  dark 
blue,  with  a  tangle  of  dainty  forget-me-nots  embroidered  over  it;  Satur- 
day tones  itself  down  to  a  quiet,  unobtrusive,  neutral  tint  or  shade,  scarlet 
or  yellow,  and  Sunday  is  deeply,  darkly,  piously  black.  It  is  difficult  to 
tell  whether  Tom  is  trying  to  express  the  state  of  his  distracted  feelings 
by  his  neckties,  of  trying  to  find  a  color  that  will  harmonize  with  his 
mustache,  or  match  Laura's  dress. 

And  during  the  variegated  necktie  period  of  man's  existence  how 
tenderly  that  mustache  is  coaxed  and  petted  and  caressed.  How  it  is 
brushed  to  make  it  lie  down  and  waxed  to  make  it  stand  out,  and  how 
he  notes  its  slow  growth,  and  weeps  and  mourns  and  prays  and  swears 
over  it  day  after  weary  day.  And  now,  if  ever,  and  generally  now,  he 
buys  things  to  make  it  take  color.  But  he  never  repeats  this  offense 
against  nature.  He  buys  a  wonderful  dye,  warranted  to  "produce  a 
beautiful,  glossy  black  or  brown  at  one  application,  without  stain  or 
injury  to  the  skin."  Buys  it  at  a  little  shabby,  round  the  corner, 
obscure  drug  store,  because  he  is  not  known  there.  And  he  tells  th  x 
assassin  who  sells  it  him,  that  he  is  buying  it  for  a  sick  sister.  And 
the  assassin  knows  that  he  lies.  And  in  the  guilty  silence  and  soli- 
tude of  his  own  room,  with  the  curtains  drawn,  and  the  door  locked, 
Tom  tries  the  virtues  of  that  magic  dye.  It  gets  on  his  fingers,  and 
turns  them  black  to  the  elbow.  It  burns  holes  in  his  handkerchief 
when  he  tries  to  rub  the  malignant  poison  off  his  ebony  fingers.  He 
applies  it  to  his  silky  mustache,  real  camel's  hair,  very  cautiously  and 
very  tenderly,  and  with  some  misgivings.  It  turns  his  lip  so  black  it 
makes  the  room  dark.  And  out  of  all  the  clouds  and  the  darkness  and 
the  sable  splotches  that  pall  every  thing  else  in  Plutonian  gloom,  that 
mustache  smiles  out,  grinning  like  some  ghastly  hirsute  specter,  gleam- 
ing like  the  moon  through  a  rifted  storm  cloud,  unstained,  untainted, 
unshaded;  a  natural,  incorruptible  blonde.  That  is  the  last  time  any 
body  fools  Tom  on  hair  dye. 

The  eye  he  has  for  immaculate  linen  and  faultless  collars.  How  it 
amazes  his  mother  and  sisters  to  learn  that  there  isn't  a  shirt  in  the 
house  fit  for  a  pig  to  wear,  and  that  he  wouldn't  wear  the  best  collar  in 
his  room  to  be  hanged  in. 


168  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

And  the  boots  he  crowds  his  feet  into  !  A  Sunday-school  room,  the 
Sunday  before  the  piciiic  or  the  Christmas  tree,  with  its  sudden  influx 
of  new  scholars,  with  irreproachable  morals  and  ambitious  appetites, 
doesn't  compare  with  the  overcrowded  condition  of  those  boots.  Too 
tight  in  the  instep ;  too  narrow  at  the  toes  ;  too  short  at  both  ends  ;  the 
only  things  about  those  boots  that  don't  hurt  him,  that  don't  fill  his 
very  soul  with  agony,  are  the  straps.  When  Tom  is  pulling  them  on, 
he  feels  that  if  somebody  would  kindly  run  over  him  three  or  four 
times  with  a  freight  train,  the  sensation  would  be  pleasant  and  reassur- 
ing and  tranquilizing.  The  air  turns  black  before  his  starting  eyes, 
there  is  a  roaring  like  the  rush  of  many  waters  in  his  ears;  he  tugs  at 
the  straps  that  are  cutting  his  fingers  in  two  and  pulling  his  arms  out 
by  the  roots,  and  just  before  his  bloodshot  eyes  shoot  clear  out  of 
his  head,  the  boot  comes  on — or  the  straps  pull  of.  Then  when  he 
stands  up,  the  earth  rocks  beneath  his  feet,  and  he  thinks  he  can  faintly 
hear  the  angels  calling  him  home.  And  when  he  walks  across  the  floor 
the  first  time,  his  standing  in  the  church  and  the  Christian  community 
is  ruined  forever.  Or  would  be  if  any  one  could  hear  what  he  says.  He 
never,  never,  never  gets  to  be  so  old  that  he  can  not  remember  those 
boots,  and  if  it  is  seventy  years  afterward,  his  feet  curl  up  in  agony  at 
the  recollection.  The  first  time  he  wears  them,  he  is  vaguely  aware,  as 
he  leaves  his  room  that  there  is  a  kind  of  "fixy  "  look  about  him,  and 
7.is  sisters'  tittering  is  not  needed  to  confirm  this  impression. 

He  has  a  certain  half-defined  impression  that  every  thing  he  has  on 
is  a  size  too  small  for  any  other  man  of  his  size.  That  his  boots  are  a 
trifle  snug,  like  a  house  Avith  four  rooms  for  a  family  of  thirty-seven. 
That  the  hat  which  sits  so  lightly  on  the  crown  of  his  head  is  jaunty  but 
limited,  like  a  junior  clerk's  salary;  that  his  gloves  are  a  neat  fit,  and 
can't  be  buttoned  with  a  stump  machine.  Tom  doesn't  know  all  this:  he 
has  only  a  general,  vague  impression  that  it  may  be  so.  And  he  doesn't 
know  that  his  sisters  know  every  line  of  it.  For  he  has  lived  many 
years  longer,  and  got  in  ever  so  much  more  trouble,  before  he  learns  that 
one  bright,  good,  sensible  girl — and  I  believe  they  are  all  that — will  see 
and  notice  more  in  a  glance,  remember  it  more  accurately,  and  talk 
more  about  it,  than  twenty  men  can  see  in  a  week.  Tom  does  not  know, 
for  his  crying  feet  will  not  let  him,  how  he  gets  from  his  room  to  the 
earthly  paradise  where  Laura  lives.  Nor  does  he  know,  after  he  gets 
there,  that  Laura  sees  him  trying  to  rest  one  foot  by  setting  it  up  on  the 
heel.  And  she  sees  him  sneak  it  back  under  his  chair,  and  tilt  it  up  on 
the  toe  for  a  change.  She  sees  him  ease  the  other  foot  a  little  by  tug- 
ging the  heel  of  the  boot  at  the  leg  of  the  chair — a  hazardous,  reckless, 


THE  EAWKETE  MAN.  .  169 

presumptuous  experiment.  Tom  tries  it  so  far  one  night,  and  slides  his 
heel  so  far  up  the  leg  of  his  boot,  that  his  foot  actually  feels  comfortable, 
and  he  thinks  the  angels  must  be  rubbing  it.  He  walks  out  of  the  par- 
lor sideways  that  night,  trying  to  hide  the  cause  of  the  sudden  elonga- 
tion of  one  leg,  and  he  hobbles  all  the  way  home  in  the  same  disjointed 
condition.  But  Laura  sees  that  too.  She  sees  all  the  little  knobs  and 
lumps  on  his  foot,  and  sees  him  fidget  and  fuss,  she  sees  the  look  of 
anguish  flitting  across  his  face  under  the  heartless,  deceitful,  veneering 
of  smiles,  and  she  makes  the  mental  remark  that  master  Tom  would  feel 
much  happier,  and  much  more  comfortable,  and  more  like  staying  longer, 
if  he  had  worn  his  father's  boots. 

But  on  his  way  to  the  house,  despite  the  distraction  of  his  crying 
feet,  how  many  pleasant,  really  beautiful,  romantic  things  Tom  thinks 
up  and  recollects  and  compiles  and  composes  to  say  to  Laura,  to  impress 
her  with  his  originality  and  wisdom  and  genius  and  bright,  exuberant 
fancy  and  general  superiority  over  all  the  rest  of  Tom  kind.  Eeal  ear- 
nest things,  you  know;  no  hollow,  conventional  compliments,  or  nonsense, 
but  such  things,  Tom  flatters  himself,  as  none  of  the  other  fellows  can 
or  will  say.  And  he  has  them  all  in  beautiful  order  when  he  gets  at  the 
foot  of  the  hill.  The  remark  about  the  weather,  to  begin  with;  not  the 
stereotyped  old  phrase,  but  a  quaint,  droll,  humorous  conceit  that  no 
one  in  the  world  but  Tom  could  think  of.  Then,  after  the  opening 
overture  about  the  weather,  something  about  music  and  Beethoven's 
sonata  in  B  flat,  and  Haydn's  symphonies,  and  of  course  something 
about  Beethoven's  grand  old  Fifth  symphony,  somebody's  else  mass,  in 
heaven  knows  how  many  flats;  and  then  something  about  art,  and  a 
profound  thought  or  two  on  science  and  philosophy,  and  so  on  to  poetry, 
and  from  poetry  to  "business." 

But  alas,  when  Tom  reaches  the  gate,  all  these  well  ordered  ideas 
display  evident  symptoms  of  breaking  up;  as  he  crosses  the  yard,  he  is 
dismayed  to  know  that  they  are  in  the  convulsions  of  a  panic,  and  when 
he  touches  the  bell  knob,  every,  each,  all  and  several  of  the  ideas,  orig- 
inal and  compiled,  that  he  has  had  on  any  subject  during  the  past  ten 
years,  forsake  him  and  return  no  more  that  evening. 

When  Laura  opened  the  door,  he  had  intended  to  say  something  real 
splendid  about  the  imprisoned  sunlight  of  something  beaming  out  a 
welcome  upon  the  what-you-may-call-it  of  the  night  or  something. 
Instead  of  which  he  says,  or  rather  gasps: 

<e  Oh,  yes,  to  be  sure;  to  be  sure;  ho." 

And  then,  conscious  that  he  has  not  said  anything  particularly  brill- 
iant or  original,  or  that  most  any  of  the  other  fellows  could  not  say 


170  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

with  a  little  practice,  he  makes  one  more  effort  to  redeem  himself 
before  he  steps  into  the  hall,  and  adds: 

"  Oh,  good  morning;  good  morning." 

Feeling  that  even  this  is  only  a  partial  success,  he  collects  his  scat- 
tered faculties  for  one  united  effort,  and  inquires: 

"  How  is  your  mother?  " 

And  then  it  strikes  him  that  he  has  about  exhausted  the  subject, 
and  he  goes  into  the  parlor,  and  sits  down,  and  just  as  soon  as  he  has 
placed  his  reproachful  feet  in  the  least  agonizing  position,  he  proceeds 
to  wholly,  completely  and  successfully  forget  every  thing  he  ever  knew 
in  his  life.  He  returns  to  consciousness  to  find  himself,  to  his  own 
amazement  and  equally  to  Laura's  bewilderment,  conducting  a  conver- 
sation about  the  crops,  and  a  new  method  of  funding  the  national  debt, 
subjects  upon  which  he  is  about  as  well  informed  as  the  town  clock. 
He  rallies,  and  makes  a  successful  effort  to  turn  the  conversation  into 
literary  channels  by  asking  her  if  she  has  read  "  Daniel  Deronda,"  and 
wasn't  it  odd  that  George  Washington  Eliot  should  name  her  heroine 
" Grenadine, "  after  a  dress  pattern?  And  in  a  burst  of  confidence  he 
assures  her  that  he  would  not  be  amazed  if  it  should  rain  before  morn- 
ing (and  he  hopes  it  will,  and  that  it  may  be  a  flood,  and  that  he  may 
get  caught  in  it,  without  an  ark  nearer  than  Cape  Horn).  And  so,  at 
last,  the  first  evening  passes  away,  and,  after  mature  deliberation  and 
many  unsuccessful  efforts,  he  rises  to  go.  But  he  does  not  go.  He 
wants  to;  but  he  doesn't  know  how.  He  says  good  evening.  Then  he 
repeats  it  in  a  marginal  reference.  Then  he  puts  it  in  a  foot-note. 
Then  he  adds  the  remarks  in  an  appendix  and  shakes  hands.  By  this 
time  he  gets  as  far  as  the  parlor  door,  and  catches  hold  of  the  knob  ane1 
holds  on  to  it  as  tightly  as  though  some  one  on  the  other  side  were  try- 
ing to  pull  it  through  the  door  and  run  away  with  it.  And  he  stands 
there  a  fidgety  statue  of  the  door  holder.  He  mentions,  for  not  more 
than  the  twentieth  time  that  evening,  that  he  is  passionately  fond  of 
music,  but  he  can't  sing.  Which  is  a  lie;  he  can.  Did  she  go  to  the 
centennial?  "No."  "  Such  a  pity — "he  begins,  but  stops  in  terror, 
lest  she  may  consider  his  condolence  a  reflection  upon  her  financial 
standing.  Did  he  go?  Oh,  yes;  yes;  he  says,  absently,  he  went.  Or, 
that  is  to  say,  no,  not  exactly.  He  did  not  exactly  go  to  the  Centennial; 
he  staid  at  home.  In  fact,  he  had  not  been  out  of  town  this  summer. 
Then  he  looks  at  the  tender  little  face;  he  looks  at  the  brown  eyes, 
sparkling  with  suppressed  merriment;  he  looks  at  the  white  hands, 
dimpled  and  soft,  twin  daughters  of  the  snow;  and  the  fairy  picture 
grows  more  lovely  as  he  looks  at  it,  until  his  heart  outruns  his  fears;  he 


THE  HAWKEYE  MAN.  171 

must  speak,  he  must  say  something  impressive  and  ripe  with  meaning, 
for  how  can  he  go  away  with  this  suspense  in  his  breast?  His  heart 
trembles  as  does  his  hand;  his  quivering  lips  part,  and — Laura  deftly 
hides  a  vagrant  yawn  behind  her  fan.  Good-night,  and  Tom  is  gone. 

There  is  a  dejected  droop  to  the  mustache  that  night,  when  in  the 
solitude  of  his  own  room  Tom  releases  his  hands  from  the  despotic 
gloves,  and  tenderly  soothes  two  of  the  reddest,  puffiest  feet  that  ever 
crept  out  of  boots  not  half  their  own  size,  and  swore  in  mute  but  eloquent 
anatomical  profanity  at  the  whole  race  of  boot-makers.  And  his  heart  is 
nearly  as  full  of  sorrow  and  bitterness  as  his  boots.  It  appears  to  him 
that  he  showed  off  to  the  worst  possible  advantage;  he  is  dimly  conscious 
that  he  acted  very  like  a  donkey,  and  he  has  the  not  entirely  unnatural 
impression  that  she  will  never  want  to  see  him  again.  And  so  he  philo- 
sophically and  manfully  makes  up  his  mind  never,  never,  never,  to  think 
of  her  again.  And  then  he  immediately  proceeds,  in  the  manliest  and 
most  natural  way  in  the  world,  to  think  of  nothing  and  nobody  else 
under  the  sun  for  the  next  ten  hours.  How  the  tender  little  face  does 
haunt  him.  He  pitches  himself  into  bed  with  an  aimless  recklessness 
that  tumbles  pillows,  bolster  and  sheets  into  one  shapeless,  wild,  chaotic 
mass,  and  he  goes  through  the  motions  of  going  to  sleep,  like  a  man  who 
would  go  to  sleep  by  steam.  He  stands  his  pillow  up  on  one  end,  and 
pounds  it  into  a  wad,  and  he  props  his  head  upon  it  as  though  it  were 
the  guillotine  block.  He  lays  it  down  and  smooths  it  out  level,  and  pats 
all  the  wrinkles  out  of  it,  and  there  is  more  sleeplessness  in  it  to  the 
square  inch  than  there  is  in  the  hungriest  mosquito  that  ever  sampled  a 
martyr's  blood.  He  gets  up  and  smokes  like  a  patent  stove,  although 
not  three  hours  ago  he  told  Laura  that  he  de  -  tes  -  ted  tobacco. 

This  is  the  enly  time  Tom  will  ever  go  through  this,  in  exactly  this 
way.  It  is  the  one  rare,  golden  experience,  the  one  bright,  rosy  dream 
of  his  life.  He  may  live  to  be  as  old  as  an  army  overcoat,  and  he  may 
marry  as  many  wives  as  Brigham  Young,  singly,  or  in  a  cluster,  but  thia 
will  come  to  him  but  once.  Let  him  enjoy  all  the  delightful  misery,  all 
the  ecstatic  wretchedness,  all  the  heavenly  forlornness  of  it  as  best  he 
can.  And  he  does  take  good,  solid,  edifying  misery  out  of  it.  How  he 
does  torture  himself  and  hate  Smith,  the  empty-headed  donkey,  whc 
can  talk  faster  than  poor  Tom  can  think,  and  whose  mustache  is  black 
as  Tom's  boots,  and  so  long  that  he  can  pull  one  end  of  it  with  both 
hands.  And  how  he  does  detest  that  idiot  Brown,  who  plays  and  sings, 
and  goes  up  there  every  time  Tom  does,  and  claws  over  a  few  old,  for- 
gotten five-finger  exercises  and  calls  it  music;  who  comes  up  there,  some 
night  when  Tom  thinks  he  has  the  evening  and  Laura  all  to  himself, 


172  KiyGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

and  brings  up  an  old,  tuneless,  voiceless,  cracked  guitar,  and  goes  crawl- 
ing around  in  the  wet  grass  under  the  windows,  and  makes  night  per- 
fectly hideous  with  what  he  calls  a  serenade.  And  he  speaks  French, 
too,  the  beast.  Poor  Tom;  when  Brown's  lingual  accomplishments  in 
the  language  of  Charlemagne  are  confined  to  —  "aw  —  aw  —  er  ah  — 
vooly  voo?"  and,  on  state  occasions,  to  the  additional  grandeur  of  "  avy 
voo  mong  shapo?"  But  poor  Tom,  who  once  covered  himself  with  con- 
fusion by  telling  Laura  that  his  favorite  in  "  Kobert  le  Diable"  was  the 
beautiful  aria,  "  Eobert  toy  que  jam/'  considers  Brown  a  very  prodigal 
in  linguistic  attainments;  another  Cardinal  Mezzofanti;  and  hates  him 
for  it  accordingly.  And  he  hates  Daubs,  the  artist,  too,  who  was  up 
there  one  evening  and  made  an  off-hand  crayon  sketch  of  her  in  an 
album.  The  picture  looked  much  more  like  Daubs'  mother,  and  Tom 
knew  it,  but  Laura  said  it  was  oh,  just  delightfully,  perfectly  splendid, 
and  Tom  has  hated  Daubs  most  cordially  ever  since.  In  fact,  Tom  hates 
every  man  who  has  the  temerity  to  speak  to  her,  or  whom  she  may  treat 
with  ladylike  courtesy. 

Until  there  comes  one  night  when  the  boots  of  the  inquisition  pattern 
sit  more  lightl  yon  their  suffering  victims ;  when  Providence  has  been 
on  Tom's  side  and  has  kept  Smith  and  Daubs  and  Brown  away,  and  has 
frightened  Tom  nearly  to  death  by  showing  him  no  one  in  the  little  p£r- 
lor  with  its  old-fashioned  furniture  but  himself  and  Laura  and  the  fur- 
niture ;  when,  almost  without  knowing  how  or  why,  they  talk  about 
life  and  its  realities  instead  of  the  last  concert  or  the  next  lecture;  when 
they  talk  of  their  plans,  and  their  day  dreams  and  aspirations,  and  their 
ideals  of  real  men  and  women;  when  they  talk  about  the  heroes  and 
heroines  of  days  long  gone  by,  grey  and  dim  in  the  ages  that  are  ever 
made  young  and  new  by  the  lives  of  noble  men  and  noble  women  who 
lived,  and  never  died  in  those  grand  old  days,  but  lived  and  live  on,  as 
imperishable  and  fadeless  in  their  glory  as  the  glittering  stars  that  sang 
at  creation's  dawn ;  when  the  room  seems  strangely  silent,  when  their 
voices  hush;  when  the  flush  of  earnestness  upon  her  face  gives  it  a  tinge 
of  sadness  that  makes  it  more  beautiful  than  ever;  when  the  dream 
and  picture  of  a  home  Eden,  and  home  life,  and  home  love,  grows  every 
moment  more  lovely,  more  entrancing  to  him,  until  at  last  poor  blunder- 
ing, stupid  Tom,  speaks  without  knowing  what  he  is  going  to  say,  speaks 
without  preparation  or  rehearsal,  speaks,  and  his  honest,  natural,  manly 
heart  touches  his  faltering  lips  with  eloquence  and  tenderness  and  ear- 
nestness, that  all  the  rhetoric  in  the  world  never  did  and  never  will  in- 
spire; and .  That  is  all  we  know  about  it.  Nobody  knows  what  is 

said  or  how  it  is  done.     Nobody.     Only  the  silent  stars  or  the  whisper- 
ing leaves,  or  the  cat,  or  maybe  Laura's  younger  brother,  or  the  hired 


THE  HA  WKEYE  MAN.  173 

girl,  who  generally  bulges  in  just  as  Tom  reaches  the  climax.  All  the 
rest  of  us  know  about  it  is,  that  Tom  doesn't  come  away  so  early  that 
night,  and  that  when  he  reaches  the  door  he  holds  a  pair  of  dimpled 
hands  instead  of  the  insensate  door  knob.  He  never  clings  to  that  door 
knob  again;  never.  Unless  Ma,  dear  Ma,  has  been  so  kind  as  to  bring 
in  her  sewing  and  spend  the  evening  with  them.  And  Tom  doesn't 
hate  any  body,  nor  want  to  kill  any  body  in  the  wide,  wide  world,  and 
he  feels  just  as  good  as  though  he  had  just  come  out  of  a  six  months' 
revival;  and  is  happy  enough  to  borrow  money  of  his  worst  enemy. 

But,  there  is  no  rose  without  a  thorn.  Although,  I  suppose  on  an 
inside  computation,  there  is,  in  this  weary  old  world  as  much  as,  say  a 
peck,  or  a  peck  and  a  half  possibly,  of  thorns  without  their  attendant 
roses.  Just  the  raw,  bare  thorns.  In  the  highest  heaven  of  his  newly 
found  bliss,  Tom  is  suddenly  recalled  to  earth  and  its  miseries  by  a  ques- 
tion from  Laura  which  falls  like  a  plummet  into  the  unrippled  sea  of 
the  young  man'.*  happiness,  and  fathoms  its  depths  in  the  shallowest 
place.  "Has  her  own  Tom" — as  distinguished  from  countless  other 
Toms,  nobody's  Toms,  unclaimed  Toms,  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
swamp  lands  on  the  public  matrimonial  domain — "  Has  her  own  Ton* 
said  any  thing  to  pa?" 

"  Oh,  yes!  pa;"  Tom  says.  "  To  be  sure;  yes." 
Grim,  heavy-browed,  austere  pa.  The  living  embodiment  of  business. 
Wiry,  shrewd,  the  life  and  mainspring  of  the  house  of  Tare  &  Tret. 
"  'M.  Well.  N'  no,  "  Tom  had  not  exactly,  as  you  might  say,  poured 
out  his  heart  to  pa.  Somehow  or  other  he  had  a  rose-colored  idea  that 
the  thing  was  going  to  go  right  along  in  this  way  forever.  Tom  had  an 
idea  that  the  programme  was  all  arranged,  printed  and  distributed,  rose- 
colored,  gilt-edged  and  perfumed.  He  was  going  to  sit  and  hold  Laura's 
hands,  pa  was  to  stay  down  at  the  office,  and  ma  was  to  make  her  visits 
to  the  parlor  as  much  like  angels',  for  their  rarity  and  brevity,  as  possi- 
ble. But  he  sees,  now  that  the  matter  has  been  referred  to,  that  it  is  a 
grim  necessity.  And  Laura  doesn't  like  to  see  such  a  spasm  of  terror 
pass  over  Tom's  face;  and  her  coral  lips  quiver  a  little  as  she  hides  her 
flushed  face  out  of  sight  on  Tom's  shoulder,  and  tells  him  how  kind  and 
tender  pa  has  always  been  with  her,  until  Tom  feels  positively  jealous 
of  pa.  And  she  tells  him  that  he  must  not  dread  going  to  see  him,  for 
pa  will  be,  oh,  so  glad  to  know  how  happy,  happy,  happy  he  can  make 
his  little  girl.  And  as  she  talks  of  him,  the  hard  working,  old-fashioned 
tender-hearted  old  man,  who  loves  his  girls  as  though  he  were  yet  only 
a  big  boy,  her  heart  grows  tenderer,  and  she  speaks  so  earnestly  and 
eloquently  that  Tom,  at  first  savagely  jealous  of  him,  is  persuaded  to  fall 
in  love  with  the  old  gentleman — he  calls  him  "pa,"  too,  now — himself. 


174  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

But  oy  the  following  afternoon  this  feeling  is  very  faint.  And  when 
he  enters  the  counting  room  of  Tare  &  Tret,  and  stands  before  pa — Oh, 
land  of  love,  how  could  Laura  ever  talk  so  about  such  a  man  !  Stubbly 
little  pa ;  with  a  fringe  of  the  most  obstinate  and  wiry  gray  hair  stand- 
ing all  around  his  bald,  bald  head ;  the  wiriest,  grizzliest  mustache 
bristling  under  his  nose ;  a  tuft  of  tangled  beard  under  the  sharp  chin, 
and  a  raspy  undergrowth  of  a  week's  run  ou  the  thin  jaws  ;  business, 
business,  business,  in  every  line  of  the  hard,  seamed  face,  and  profit  and 
loss,  barter  and  trade,  dicker  and  bargain,  in  every  movement  of  the 
nervous  hands.  Pa ;  old  business  !  He  puts  down  the  newspaper  a 
little  way,  and  looks  over  the  top  of  it  as  Tom  announces  himself,  glanc- 
ing at  the  young  man  with  a  pair  of  blue  eyes  that  peer  through  old- 
fashioned  iron-bowed  spectacles,  that  look  as  though  they  had  known 
these  eyes  and  done  business  with  them  ever  since  they  wept  over  their 
A  B  C's  or  peeked  into  the  tall  stone  jar  Sunday  afternoon  to  look  for 
the  doughnuts. 

Tom,  who  had  felt  all  along  there  could  be  no  inspiration  on  his 
part  in  this  scene,  has  come  prepared.  At  least  he  had  his  last  true 
statement  at  his  tongue's  end  when  he  entered  the  counting-room.  But 
now,  it  seems  to  him  that  if  he  had  been  brought  up  in  a  circus,  and 
cradled  inside  of  a  sawdust  ring,  and  all  his  life  trained  to  twirl  his 
hat,  he  couldn't  do  it  better,  nor  faster,  nor  be  more  utterly  incapable 
of  doing  any  thing  else.  At  last  he  swallows  a  lump  in  his  throat  as  big 
as  a  ballot  box,  and  faintly  gasps  : 

"  Good  morning." 

Mr.  Tret  hastens  to  recognize  him.  "  Eh  ?  oh  ;  yes;  yes  ;  yes  ;  I  see  ; 
young  Bostwick,  from  Dope  &  Middlerib's.  Oh  yes.  Well — ?" 

"  I  have  come,  sir,"  gasps  Tom,  thinking  all  around  the  world  from 
Cook's  explorations  to  ( '  Captain  Riley's  Narrative,"  for  the  first  line  of 
that  speech  that  Tare  &  Tret  have  just  scared  out  of  him  so  completely 
that  hy  dosen't  believe  he  ever  knew  a  word  of  it.  "  I  have  come — " 
and  he  thinks  if  his  lips  didn't  get  so  dry  and  hot  they  make  his  teeth 
ache,  that  he  could  get  along  with  it :  "I  have  sir, — come,  Mr.  Tret; 
Mr.  Tret,  sir — I  have  come — I  am  come — " 

"Yes,  ye-es,"  says  Mr.  Tret,  in  the  wildest  bewilderment,  but  in  no- 
very  encouraging  tones,  thinking  the  young  man  probably  wants  to  bor- 
row money  ;  ' '  Ye-es  ;  I  see  you've  come.  Well ;  that's  all  right ;  glad 
to  see  you.  [Laughter.]  Yes,  you've  come  ?" 

Tom's  hat  is  now  making  about  nine  hundred  and  eighty  revolutions 
per  minute,  and  apparently  not  running  up  to  half  its  full  capacity. 

"Sir  ;  Mr.  Tret,"  he  resumes,  " I  have  come,  sir ;  Mr.  Tret— I  am 
here  to — to  sue — to  sue,  Mr.  Tret — I  am  here  to  sue — " 


THE  UAWKE7E  MAN.  175 

"Sue,  eh  ?"  the  old  man  echoes  sharply,  with  a  belligerent  rustle  of 
the  newspaper;  "sue  Tare  &  Tret,  eh?  "Well,  that's  right,  young  man; 
that's  right.  Sue,  and  get  damages.  We'll  give  you  all  the  law  you 
want." 

Tom's  head  is  so  hot,  and  his  heart  is  so  cold,  that  he  thinks  they 
must  be  about  a  thousand  miles  apart. 

"Sir,"  he  explains,  " that  isn't  it.  It  isn't  that.  I  only  want  to 
ask — I  have  long  known — Sir,"  he  adds,  as  the.  opening  lines  of  his 
speech  come  to  him.  like  a  message  from  heaven,  "Sir,  you  have  a 
flower,  a  tender,  lovely  blossom ;  chaste  as  the  snow  that  crowns  the 
mountain's  brow;  fresh  as  the  breath  of  morn;  lovelier  than  the  rosy- 
fingered  hours  that  fly  before  Aurora's  car;  pure  as  the  lily  kissed 
by  dew.  This  precious  blossom,  watched  by  your  paternal  eyes,  the 
object  of  your  tender  care  and  solicitude,  I  ask  of  you.  I  would  wear  it 
in  my  heart,  and  guard  and  cherish  it — and  in  the — " 

"  Oh-h,  ye-es,  yes,  yes,"  the  old  man  says,  soothingly,  beginning  to 
see  that  Tom  is  only  drunk.  "  Oh,  yes,  yes;  I  don't  know  much  about 
them  myself  ;  my  wife  and  the  girls  generally  keep  half  the  windows  in 
the  house  littered  up  with  them,  winter  and  summer,  every  window  so 
full  of  house  plants  the  sun  can't  shine  in.  Corne  up  to  the  house, 
they'll  give  you  all  you  can  carry  away,  give  you  a  hat  full  of  'em." 

"No,  no,  no  ;  you  don't  understand,"  says  poor  Tom,  and  old  Mr. 
Tret  now  observes  that  Tom  is  very  drunk  indeed.  tf  It  isn't  that,  sir. 
Sir,  that  isn't  it.  I — I — I  want  to  inarry  your  daughter  ! " 

And  there  it  is  at  last,  as  bluntly  as  though  Tom  had  wadded  it  into 
a  gun  and  shot  it  at  the  old  man.  Mr.  Tret  does  not  say  anything  for 
twenty  seconds.  Tom  tells  Laura  that  evening  that  it  was  two  hours 
and  a  half  before  her  father  opened  his  head.  Then  he  says,  "  Oh,  yes, 
yes,  yes,  yes  ;  to  be  sure  ;  to — be — sure. "  And  then  the  long  pause  is 
dreadful.  "Yes,  yes.  "Well,  I  don't  know.  I  don't  know  about  that, 
young  man.  Said  any  thing  to  Jennie  about  it?" 

"It  isn't  Jennie,"  Tom  gasps,  seeing  a  new  Rubicon  to  cross; 
"  its " 


"  Oh,  Julie,  eh  ?  well,  I  don't " 

"No,  sir,"  interjects  the  despairing  Tom,  "  it  isn't  Julie,  its " 

"  Sophie,  eh  ?    Oh,  well,  Sophie " 

"  Sir,"  says  Tom,  "if  you  please,  sir,  it  isn't  Sophie,  its " 

"Not  Minnie,  surely?     Why  Minnie  is  hardly — well,  I  don't  know. 

Young  folks  get  along  faster  than " 

"  Dear  Mr.  Tret,"  breaks  in  the  distracted  lover,  "it's  Laura." 


176  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

As  they  sit  and  stand  there,  looking  at  each  other,  the  dingy  old 
counting-room,  with  the  heavy  shadows  lurking  in  every  corner,  with 
its  time-worn,  heavy  brown  furnishings,  with  the  scanty  dash  of  sunlight 
breaking  in  through  the  dusty  window,  looks  like  an  old  Rubens  paint- 
ing ;  the  beginning  and  finishing  of  a  race:  the  old  man,  nearly  ready  to 
lay  his  armor  off,  glad  to  be  so  nearly  and  so  safely  through  with  the 
race  and  the  fight  that  Tom,  in  all  his  inexperience  and  with  all  the  rash 
enthusiasm  and  conceit  of  a  young  man,  is  just  getting  ready  to  run  and 
fight,  or  fight  and  run,  you  never  can  tell  which  until  he  is  through 
with  it.  And  the  old  man,  looking  at  Tom,  and  through  him,  and  past 
him,  feels  his  old  heart  throb  almost  as  quickly  as  does  that  of  the  young 
man  before  him.  For  looking  down  a  long  vista  of  happy,  eventful 
years  bordered  with  roseate  hopes  and  bright  dreams  and  anticipations, 
he  sees  a  tender  face,  radiant  with  smiles  and  kindled  with  blushes;  he 
feels  a  soft  hand  drop  into  his  own  with  its  timid  pressure;  he  sees  the 
vision  open,  under  the  glittering  summer  stars,  down  mossy  hillsides, 
where  the  restless  breezes,  sighing  through  the  rustling  leaves,  whispered 
their  tender  secret  to  the  noisy  katydids;  strolling  along  the  winding 
paths,  deep  in  the  bending  wild  grass,  down  in  the  star-lit  aisles  of  the 
dim  old  woods;  loitering  where  the  meadow  brook  sparkles  over  the 
white  pebbles  or  murmurs  around  the  great  flat  stepping-stones;  linger- 
ing on  the  rustic  foot-bridge,  while  he  gazes  into  eyes  eloquent  and 
tender  in  their  silent  love-light;  up  through,  the  long  pathway  of  years, 
flecked  and  checkered  with  sunshine  and  cloud,  with  storm  and  calm, 
through  years  of  struggle,  trial,  sorrow,  disappointment,  out  at  last  into 
the  grand,  glorious,  crowning  beauty  and  benison  of  hard-won  and  well- 
deserved  success,  until  he  sees  now  this  second  Laura,  re-imaging  her 
mother  as  she  was  in  the  dear  old  days.  And  he  rouses  from  his  dream 
with  a  start,  and  he  tells  Tom  he'll  "talk  it  over  with  Mrs.  Tret  and 
see  him  again  in  the  morning." 

And  so  they  are  duly  and  formally  engaged  ;  and  the  very  first  thing 
they  do,  they  make  the  very  sensible,  though  very  uncommon,  resolu- 
tion to  so  conduct  themselves  that  no  one  will  ever  suspect  it.  And 
they  succeed  admirably.  No  one  ever  does  suspect  it.  They  come  into 
church  in  time  to  hear  the  benediction — every  time  they  come  together. 
They  shun  all  other  people  when  church  is  dismissed,  and  are  seen  to  go 
home  alone  the  longest  way.  At  picnics  they  are  missed  not  more  than 
fifty  times  a  day,  and  are  discovered  sitting  under  a  tree,  holding  each 
other's  hands,  gazing  into  each  other's  eyes  and  saying — nothing. 
When  he  throws  her  shawl  over  her  shoulders,  he  never  looks  at  what 
he  is  doing,  but  looks  straight  into  her  starry  eyes,  throws  the  shawl 


THE  HAWKEYE  MAN.  177 

right  over  her  natural  curls,  and  drags  them  out  by  the  hairpins.  If,  at 
sociable  or  festival,  they  are  left  alone  in  a  dressing-room  a  second  and 
a  half,  Laura  emerges  with  her  ruffle  standing  around  like  a  railroad 
accident;  [laughter]  arc  :'om  has  enough  complexion  on  his  shoulder 
to  go  around  a  young  ladies'  seminary.  When  they  drive  out,  they  sit 
in  a  buggy  with  a  seat  eighteen  inches  wide,  and  there  is  two  feet  of 
unoccupied  room  at  either  end  of  it.  Long  years  afterward,  when  they 
drive,  a  street-car  isn't  too  wide  for  them ;  and  when  they  walk,  you 
could  drive  four  loads  of  hay  between  them. 

And  yet,  as  carefully  as  they  guard  their  precious,  little  secret,  and 
as  cautious  and  circumspect  as  they  are  in  their  walk  and  behavior,  it 
gets  talked  around  that  they  are  engaged.  People  are  so  prying  and 
suspicious. 

And  so  the  months  of  their  engagement  run  on ;  never  before  or 
since,  time  flies  so  swiftly— unless,  it  may  be,  some  time  when  Tom 
has  an  acceptance  in  bank  to  meet  in  two  days,  that  he  can't  lift  one 
end  of — and  the  weddiug  day  dawns,  fades,  and  the  wedding  is  over. 
Over,  with  its  little  circle  of  delighted  friends,  with  its  ripples  of  pleas- 
ure and  excitement,  with  its  touches  of  home  love  and  home  life,  that 
leave  their  lasting  impress  upon  Laura's  heart,  although  Tom,  with 
man-like  blindness,  never  sees  one  of  them.  Over,  with  ma,  with  the 
thousand  and  one  anxieties  attendant  on  the  grand  event  in  her 
daughter's  life  hidden  away  under  her  dear  old  smiling  face,  down, 
away  down  under  the  tender,  glistening  eyes,  deep  in  the  loving  heart; 
ma,  hurrying  here  and  fluttering  there,  in  the  intense  excitement  of 
something  strangely  made  up  of  happiness  and  grief,  of  apprehension 
and  hope ;  ma,  with  her  sudden  disappearances  and  flushed  reappear- 
ances, indicating  struggles  and  triumphs  in  the  turbulent  world  down 
stairs;  ma,  with  the  new  fangled  belt  ^'.th  the  dinner-plate  buckles, 
fastened  on  wrong  side  foremost,  and  the  flowers  dangling  down  the 
wrong  side  of  her  head,  to  Sophie's  intense  horror  and  pantomimic 
telegraphy;  ma,  flying  here  and  there,  seeing  that  every  thing  is  going 
right,  from  kitchen  to  dressing-rooms;  looking  after  avery  thing  and 
every  body,  with  her  hands  and  heart  just  as  full  as  they  will  hold,  and 
more  voices  calling,  "ma,"  from  every  room  in  the  house  than  you 
would  think  one  hundred  mas  could  answer. 

But  she  answers  them  all,  and  she  sees  after  every  thing,  and  just  in 
the  nick  of  time  prevents  Mr.  Tret  from  going  down  stairs  ar  i.  .Attend- 
ing the  ceremony  in  a  loud-figured  dressing-gown  and  green  slippers; 
ma,  who,  with  the  quivering  lip  and  glistening  eyes,  has  to  be  cheerful, 
and  lively,  and  smiling;  because,  if,  as  she  thinks  of  the  dearest  and 
12 


178  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

best  of  her  flock  going  away  from  her  fold,  to  put  her  life  and  her  hap- 
piness into  another's  keeping,  she  gives  way  for  one  moment,  a  dozen 
reproachful  voices  cry  out,  "Oh-h  ma!"  How  it  all  comes  back  to- 
Laura,  like  the  tender  shadows  of  a  dream,  long  years  after  the  dear, 
dear  face,  furrowed  with  marks  of  patient  suffering  and  loving  care, 
rests  under  the  snow  and  the  daisies;  when  the  mother  love  that 
glistened  in  the  tender  eyes  has  closed  in  darkness  on  the  dear  old  home; 
and  the  nerveless  hands,  crossed  in  dreamless  sleep  upon  the  pulseless 
breast,  can  never  again  touch  the  children's  heads  with  caressing 
gesture;  how  the  sweet  vision  comes  to  Laura,  as  it  shone  on  her  wed- 
ding morn,  rising  in  tenderer  beauty  through  the  blinding  tears  her 
own  excess  of  happiness  calls  up,  as  the  rainbow  spans  the  cloud  only 
through  the  mingling  of  the  golden  sunshine  and  the  falling  rain. 
[Applause.] 

And  Pa,  dear,  old,  shabby  Pa,  whose  clothes  will  not  fit  him  as  they 
fit  other  men;  who  always  dresses  just  a  year  and  a  half  behind  the 
style;  Pa,  wandering  up  and  down  through  the  house,  as  though  he 
were  lost  in  his  own  home,  pacing  through  the  hall  like  a  sentinel, 
blundering  aimlessly  and  listlessly  into  rooms  where  he  has  no  business, 
and  being  repelled  therefrom  by  a  chorus  of  piercing  shrieks  and 
hysterical  giggling;  Pa,  getting  off  his  well-worn  jokes  with  an  assump- 
tion of  merriment  that  seems  positively  real;  Pa,  who  creeps  away  by 
himself  once  in  a  while,  and  leans  his  face  against  the  window,  and 
sighs,  in  direct  violation  of  all  strict  household  regulations,  right  against 
the  glass,  as  he  thinks  of  his  little  girl  going  away  to-day  from  the 
home  whose  love  and  tenderness  and  patience  she  has  known  so  well. 
Only  yesterday,  it  seems  to  him,  the  little  baby  girl,  bringing  the  first 
music  of  baby  prattle  into  his  home;  then  a  little  girl  in  short  dresses, 
with  scho.ol-girl  troubles  and  school-girl  pleasures;  then  an  older  little 
girl,  out  of  school  and  into  society,  but  a  little  girl  to  Pa  still.  And 

then .      But  somehow,  this  is  as  far  as  Pa  can  get;  for  he  sees,  in 

the  flight  of  this,  the  first,  the  following  flight  of  the  other  fledglings; 
and  he  thinks  how  silent  and  desolate  the  old  nest  will  be  when  they 
have  all  mated  and  flown  away.  He  thinks,  when  their  flight  shall  have 
made  other  homes  bright,  and  cheery,  and  sparkling  with  music  and 
prattle  and  laughter,  how  it  will  leave  the  old  home  hushed,  and  quiet 
and  still.  How,  in  the  long,  lonesome  afternoons,  mother  will  sit  by 
the  empty  cradle  that  rocked  them  all,  murmuring  the  sweet  old  cradle- 
songs  that  brooded  over  all  their  sleep,  until  the  rising  tears  check 
the  swaying  cradle  and  choke  the  song  —  and  back,  over  river,  and 
prairie  and  mountain,  that  roll,  and  stretch  and  rise  between  the 


THE  HAWKEYE  MAN.  179 

old  horn*  /ind  the  new  cues,  comes  back  the  prattle  of  her  little 
ones,  the  rippling  music  of  their  laughter,  the  tender  cadences  of 
th^ir  SOD^S,  until  the  hushed  old  home  is  haunted  by  memories  of  its 
ch  idren-^-gray  and  old  they  may  be,  with  other  children  clustering 
about  their  knees;  but  to  the  dear  old  home  they  are  "the  children" 
still.  And  dreaming  thus,  when  Pa  for  a  moment  finds  his  little  girl 
alone — his  little  girl  who  is  going  away  out  of  the  home  whose  love  she 
knows,  into  a  home  whose  tenderness  and  patience  are  all  untried — he 
holds  her  in  his  arms  and  whispers  the  most  fervent  blessing  that  ever 
throbbed  from  a  father's  heart;  and  Laura's  wedding  day  would  be 
incomplete  and  unfeeling  without  her  tears.  So  is  the  pattern  of  our 
life  made  up  of  smiles  and  tears,  shadow  and  sunshine.  Tom  sees  none 
of  these  background  pictures  of  the  wedding  day.  He  sees  none  of  its 
real,  heartfelt  earnestness.  He  sees  only  the  bright,  sunny  tints  and 
happy  figures  that  the  tearful,  shaded  background  throws  out  in  golden 
relief;  but  never  stops  to  think  that,  without  the  shadows,  the  clouds, 
and  the  somber  tints  of  the  background,  the  picture  would  be  flat,  pale 
and  lusterless. 

And  then,  the  presents.  The  assortment  of  brackets,  serviceable, 
ornamental  and — cheap.  The  French  clock,  that  never  went,  that  does 
not  go,  that  never  will  go.  And  the  nine  potato  mashers.  The  eight 
mustard  spoons.  The  three  cigar  stands.  Eleven  match  safes;  assorted 
patterns.  A  dozen  tidies,  charity  fair  styles,  blue  dog  on  a  yellow  back- 
ground, barking  at  a  green  boy  climbing  over  a  red  fence,  after  seal 
brown  apples.  The  two  churns,  old  pattern,  straight  handle  and  dasher, 
and  they  have  as  much  thought  of  keeping  a  cow  as  they  have  of  keep- 
ing a  section  of  artillery.  Five  things  they  didn't  know  the  names  of, 
and  never  could  find  anybody  who  could  tell  what  they  were  for.  And 
a  nickel  plated,  pocket  corkscrew,  that  Tom,  in  a  fine  burst  of  indigna- 
tion, throws  out  of  the  window,  which  Laura  says  is  just  like  her  own, 
impulsive  Tom.  And  not  long  after,  her  own,  impulsive  Tom  catches 
his  death  of  cold  and  ruins  the  knees  of  his  best  trowsers  crawling 
around  in  the  wet  grass  hunting  for  that  same  corkscrew.  Which  is 
also  just  like  her  own,  impulsive  Tom. 

And  then,  the  young  people  go  to  work  and  buy  e-v-e-r-y  thing  they 
need,  the  day  they  go  to  housekeeping.  Every  thing.  Just  as  well, 
Tom  says,  to  get  every  thing  at  once  and  have  .it  delivered  right  up  at 
the  house,  as  to  spend  five  or  six  or  ten  or  twenty  years  in  stocking  up 
a  house,  as  his  father  did.  And  Laura  thinks  so,  too,  and  she  wonders 
that  Tom  should  know  so  much  more  than  his  father.  This  worries 
Tom  himself,  when  he  thinks  of  it,  and  he  never  rightly  understands 


ISO  EIHO8  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

how  it  is,  until  he  is  forty-five  or  fifty  years  old,  and  has  a  Tom  of  his 
own  to  direct  and  advise  him.  So  they  make  out  a  list,  and  revise  it, 
and  rewrite  it,  until  they  have  every  thing  down,  complete,  and  it  isn't 
until  supper  is  ready,  the  first  day,  that  they  discover  there  isn't  a  knife, 
a  fork,  or  a  plate  or  a  spoon  in  the  new  house.  And  the  first  day  the 
washerwoman  comes,  and  the  water  is  hot,  and  the  clothes  are  all  ready, 
it  is  discovered  that  there  isn't  a  wash-tub  nearer  than  the  grocery. 
And  further  along  in  the  day  the  discovery  is  made  that  while  Tom  has 
bought  a  clothes  line  that  will  reach  to  the  north  pole  and  back,  and 
then  has  to  be  coiled  up  a  mile  or  two  in  the  back  yard,  there  isn't  a 
clothes  pin  in  the  settlement.  And,  in  the  course  of  a  week  or  two, 
Tom  slowly  awakens  to  the  realization  of  the  fact  that  he  has  only  begun 
to  get.  And  if  he  should  live  two  thousand  years,  which  he  rarely  does, 
and  possibly  may  not,  he  would  think,  just  before  he  died,  of  something 
they  had  wanted  the  worst  way  for  five  centuries,  and  had  either  been 
too  poor  to  get,  or  Tom  had  always  forgotten  to  bring  up.  So  long  as 
he  lives,  Tom  goes  on  bringing  home  things  that  they  need — absolute, 
simple  necessities,  that  were  never  eo  much  as  hinted  at  in  that  exhaus- 
tive list. 

And  old  Time  comes  along,  and  knowing  that  the  man  in  that  new 
house  will  never  get  through  bringing  things  up  to  it,  helps  him  out, 
and  comes  around  and  brings  things,  too.  Brings  a  gray  huir  now  and 
then,  to  stick  in  Tom's  mustache,  which  has  grown  too  big  to  be  orna- 
mental, and  too  wayward  and  unmanageable  to  be  comfortable.  He 
brings  little  cares  and  little  troubles,  and  little  trials  and  liitle  butcher 
bills,  and  little  grocery  bills,  and  little  tailor  bills,  and  nice,  large  milli- 
nery bills,  that  pluck  at  Tom's  mustache  and  stroke  it  the  wrong  way  and 
make  it  look  more  and  more  as  pa's  did  the  first  time  Tom  saw  it.  He 
brings,  by  and  by,  the  prints  of  baby  fingers,  and  pats  them  around  on 
the  dainty  wall  paper.  Brings,  some  times,  a  voiceless  messenger  that 
lays  its  icy  fingers  on  the  baby  lips,  and  hushes  their  dainty  prattle,  and 
in  the  baptism  of  its  first  sorrow,  the  darkened  little  home  has  its 
dearest  and  tenderest  tie  to  the  upper  fold.  Brings,  by  and  by,  the 
tracks  of  a  boy's  muddy  boots,  and  scatters  them  all  up  and  down  the 
clean  porch.  Brings  a  messenger,  one  day,  to  take  the  younger  Tom 
away  to  college.  And  the  quiet  the  boy  leaves  behind  him,  is  so  much 
harder  to  endure  than  his  racket,  that  old  Tom  is  tempted  to  keep  a 
brass  band  in  the  house  until  the  boy  comes  back.  But  old  Time  brings 
him  home  at  last,  and  it  does  make  life  seem  terribly  real  and  earnest  to 
Tom,  and  how  the  old  laugh  rings  out  and  ripples  all  over  Laura's 
face,  when  they  see  old  Tom's  first  mustache,  budding  and  struggling 
into  second  life,  on  young  Tom's  face. 


THE  HAWREYE  NAN.  181 

And  still  old  Time  comes  round,  bringing  each  year  whiter  frosts  to 
scatter  on  the  whitening  mustache,  and  brighter  gleams  of  silver  to  glint 
the  brown  of  Laura's  hair.  Bringing  the  blessings  of  peaceful  old  age 
and  a  lovelocked  home  to  crown  these  noble,  earnest,  real,  human  lives 
bristling  with  human  faults,  marred  with  human  mistakes,  scarred  and 
seamed  and  rifted  with  human  troubles,  and  crowned  with  the  com- 
passion that  only  perfection  can  send  upon  imperfection.  Comes,  with 
happy  memories  of  the  past,  and  quiet  confidence  for  the  future.  Comes, 
with  the  changing  scenes  of  day  and  night;  with  winter's  storm  and 
summer's  calm  ;  comes,  with  the  sunny  peace  and  the  backward  dreams 
of  age;  comes,  until  one  day,  the  eye  of  the  relentless,  old  reaper  rests 
upon  old  Tom,  standing  right  in  the  swath,  amid  the  golden  corn. 
The  sweep  of  the  noiseless  scythe,  that  never  turns  its  edge,  Time  passes 
on,  old  Tom  steps  out  of  young  Tom's  way,  and  the  cycle  of  a  life  is 
complete.  [Applause.] 


BUKDETTE'S  ROMANCE  OF  THE  CAKPET. 

Basking  in  peace,  in  the  warm  Spring  sun, 
South  Hill  smiled  upon  Burlington. 

The  breath  of  May !  and  the  day  was  fair, 
And  the  bright  motes  danced  in  the  balmy  air, 

And  the  sunlight  gleamed  where  the  restless  breeze 
Kissed  the  fragrant  blooms  on  the  apple  trees. 

His  beardless  cheek  with  a  smile  was  spanned 
As  he  stood  with  a  carriage-whip  in  his  hand. 

And  he  laughed  as  he  doffed  his  bob-tailed  coat, 
And  the  echoing  folds  of  the  carpet  smote. 

And  she  smiled  as  she  leaned  on  her  busy  mop, 
And  said  she  would  tell  him  when  to  stop. 

So  he  pounded  away  till  the  dinner  bell 
Gave  him  a  little  breathing  spell. 

But  he  sighed  when  the  kitchen  clock  struck  one; 
And  she  said  the  carpet  wasn't  done. 

But  he  lovingly  put  in  his  biggest  licks, 

And  pounded,  like  mad,  till  the  clock  struck  six. 

And  she  said,  in  a  dubious  kind  of  way, 

That  she  guessed  he  could  finish  it  up  next  day. 

Then  all  that  day,  and  the  next  day  too, 
The  fuzz  from  the  dustless  carpet  flew. 


182  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

And  she'd  give  it  a  look  at  eventide, 
And  say,  "  Now  beat  on  the  other  side." 

And  the  new  days  came,  as  the  old  days  went, 
And  the  landlord  came  for  his  regular  rent. 

And  the  neighbors  laughed  at  the  tireless  boom, 
And  his  face  was  shadowed  with  clouds  of  gloom; 

Till,  at  last,  one  cheerless  Winter  day, 
He  kicked  at  the  carpet  and  slid  away, 

Over  the  fence  and  down  the  street, 
Speeding  away  with  footsteps  fleet; 

And  never  again  the  morning  sun 
Smiled  at  him  beating  his  carpet  drum; 

And  South  Hill  often  said,  with  a  yawn, 
"  Where  has  the  carpet  martyr  gone?  " 


Years  twice  twenty  had  come  and  passed, 
And  the  carpet  swayed  in  the  autumn  blast; 

For  never  yet,  since  that  bright  spring  time, 
Had  it  ever  been  taken  down  from  the  line. 

Over  the  fence  a  gray-haired  man 
Cautiously  clim,  clome,  clem,  clum,  clam; 

He  found  him  a  stick  in  the  old  woodpile, 
And  he  gathered  it  up  with  a  sad,  grim  smile. 

A  flush  passed  over  his  face  forlorn 

As  he  gazed  at  the  carpet,  tattered  and  torn; 

And  he  hit  it  a  most  resounding  thwack, 
Till  the  startled  air  gave  its  echoes  back. 

And  out  of  the  window  a  white  face  leaned, 
And  a  palsied  hand  the  sad  eyes  screened. 

She  knew  his  face — she  gasped,  she  sighed: 
"  A  little  more  on  the  under  side." 

Right  down  on  the  ground  his  stick  he  throwed, 
And  he  shivered  and  muttered,  "Well,  I  am  blowed! 

And  he  turned  away,  with  a  heart  full  sore, 
And  he  never  was  seen,  not  none  no  more. 


THE  HAWKETE  MAN.  183 


BURDETTE'S  MASTER-PIECE. 

On  the  road  once  more,  with  Lebanon  fading  away  in  the  distance, 
the  fat  passenger  drumming  idly  on  the  window-pane,  the  cross  passen- 
ger sound  asleep,  and  the  tall,  thin  passenger  reading  "Gen.  Grant's 
Tour  Around  the  World/'  and  wondering  why  "Green's  August  Flower" 
should  be  printed  above  the  doors  of  "  A  Buddhist  Temple  at  Benares." 
To  me  comes  the  brakeman,  and,  seating  himself  on  the  arm  of  the  seat, 
says: 

"  I  went  to  church  yesterday." 

"Yes?"  I  said,  with  that  interested  inflection  that  asks  for  more. 
"And  what  church  did  you  attend?  " 

"Which  do  you  guess?  "  he  asked. 

"  Some  union  mission  church,"  I  hazarded. 

"No, "he  said,  "I  don't  like  to  run  on  these  branch  roads  very 
much.  I  don't  often  go  to  church,  and  when  I  do  I  want  to  run  on  the 
main  line,  where  your  run  is  regular  and  you  go  on  schedule  time  and 
don't  have  to  wait  on  connections.  I  don't  like  to  run  on  a  branch. 
Good  enough,  but  I  don't  like  it." 

"Episcopal?"  I  guessed. 

"Limited  express,"  he  said,  "all  palace  cars  and  $2  extra  for  seat, 
fast  time  and  only  stop  at  big  stations.  Nice  line,  but  too  exhaustive 
for  a  brakeman.  All  train  men  in  uniform,  conductor's  punch  and  lan- 
tern silver-plated,  and  no  train  boys  allowed.  Then  the  passengers  are 
allowed  to  talk  back  at  the  conductor,  and  it  makes  them  too  free  and 
easy.  No,  I  couldn't  stand  the  palace  cars.  Rich  road,  though.  Don't 
often  hear  of  a  receiver  being  appointed  for  that  line.  Some  mighty 
nice  people  travel  on  it,  too." 

"Universalist?  "  I  suggested. 

"Broad  gauge,"  said  the  brakeman;  "does  too  much  complimentary 
business.  Every  body  travels  on  a  pass.  Conductor  doesn't  get  a  fare 
once  in  fifty  miles.  Stops  at  flag  stations,  and  won't  run  into  any 
thing  but  a  union  depot.  No  smoking-car  on  the  train.  Train  orders 
are  rather  vague,  though,  and  the  trainmen  don't  get  along  well  with 
the  passengers.  No,  I  don't  go  to  the  Universalist,  but  I  know  some 
good  men  who  run  on  that  road." 

"Presbyterian?"  I  asked. 

"Narrow  gauge,  eh?"  said  the  brakeman.  "Pretty  track,  straight 
as  a  rule;  tunnel  right  through  a  mountain  rather  than  go  around  it; 
spirit-level  grade;  passengers  have  to  show  their  tickets  before  they  get 
on  the  train.  Mighty  strict  road,  but  the  cars  are  a  little  narrow;  have 


184  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

to  sit  one  in  a  seat,  and  no  room  in  the  aisle  to  dance.  Then  there  are 
no  stop-over  tickets  allowed;  got  to  go  straight  through  to  the  station 
you're  ticketed  for,  or  you  can't  get  on  at  all.  When  the  car  is  full,  no 
extra  coaches;  cars  built  at  the  shop  to  hold  just  so  many,  and  nobody 
else  allowed  on.  But  you  don't  often  hear  of  an  accident  on  that  road. 
It's  run  right  up  to  the  rules." 

"  Maybe  you  joined  the  Free-Thinkers?  "  I  said. 

' '  Scrub  road,"  said  the  brakeman;  "  dirt  roadbed  and  no  ballast;  no 
time  card  and  no  train  dispatcher.  All  trains  run  wild,  and  every  engi- 
neer makes  his  own  time,  just  as  he  pleases.  Smoke  if  you  want  to; 
kind  of  go-as-you-please  road.  Too  many  side-tracks,  and  every  switch 
wide  open  all  the  time,  with  the  switchman  sound  asleep  and  the  target 
lamp  dead  out.  Get  on  as  you  please  and  get  off  when  you  want  to. 
Don't  have  to  show  your  tickets,  and  the  conductor  isn't  expected  to  do 
any  thing  but  amuse  the  passengers.  No,  sir.  I  was  offered  a  pass,  but 
I  don't  like  the  line.  I  don't  like  to  travel  on  a  road  that  has  no  ter- 
minus. Do  you  know,  sir,  I  asked  a  division  superintendent  where 
that  road  run  to,  and  he  said  he  hoped  to  die  if  he  knew.  I  asked  him 
if  the  general  superintendent  could  tell  me,  and  he  said  he  didn't 
believe  they  had  a  general  superintendent,  and  if  they  had,  he  didn't 
know  any  thing  more  about  the  road  than  the  passengers.  I  asked  him 
whom  he  reported  to,  and  he  said  'Nobody.'  I  asked  a  conductor  whom 
he  got  his  orders  from,  and  he  said  he  didn't  take  orders  from  any  liv- 
.  ing  man  or  dead  ghost.  And  when  I  asked  the  engineer  whom  he  got 
his  orders  from,  he  said  he'd  like  to  see  any  body  give  him  orders;  he'd 
run  the  train  to  suit  himself,  or  he'd  run  it  into  the  ditch.  Now,  you 
see,  sir,  I'm  a  railroad  man,  and  I  don't  care  to  run  on  a  road  that  has 
no  time,  makes  no  connections,  runs  nowhere,  and  has  no  superintend- 
ent. It  may  be  all  right,  but  I've  railroaded  too  long  to  understand  it." 

"  Maybe  you  went  to  the  Congregational  church?" 

"Popular  road,"  said  the  brakeman;  "an  old  road,  too — one  of  the 
very  oldest  in  this  country.  Good  roadbed  and  comfortable  cars.  Well 
managed  road,  too;  directors  don't  interfere  with  division  superintend- 
ents and  train  orders.  Road's  mighty  popular,  but  it's  pretty  independ- 
ent, too.  Yes,  didn't  one  of  the  division  superintendents  down  East 
discontinue  one  of  the  oldest  stations  on  this  line  two  or  thrc"  years 
ago?  But  it's  a  mighty  pleasant  road  to  travel  on.  Always  has  such  a 
pleasant  class  of  passengers." 

"Did  you  try  the  Methodist?"  I  said. 

"Now  you're  shouting! "he  said,  with  some  enthusiasm.  "Nice 
road,  eh?  Fast  time  and  plenty  of  passengers.  Engines  carry  a  pov7er 


THE  HAWKE7E  MAN.  185 

of  steam,  and  don't  you  forget  it;  steam-gauge  shows  a  hundred  and 
enough  all  the  time.  Lively  road;  when  the  conductor  shouts  'All 
aboard/  you  can  hear  him  at  the  next  station.  Every  train-light  shines 
like  a  headlight.  Stop-over  checks  are  given  on  all  through  tickets; 
passenger  can  drop  off  the  train  as  often  as  he  likes,  do  the  station  two 
or  three  days,  and  hop  on  the  next  revival  train  that  comes  thundering 
along.  Good,  whole-souled,  companionable  conductors;  ain't  a  road  in 
the  country  where  the  passengers  feel  more  at  home.  No  passes;  every 
passenger  pays  full  traffic  rates  for  his  ticket.  Wesleyanhouse  air  brakes 
on  all  trains,  too;  pretty  safe  road,  but  I  didn't  ride  over  it  yesterday." 

" Perhaps  you  tried  the  Baptist?"  I  guessed  once  more. 

"Ah,  ha! "  said  the  brakeman;  "she's  a  daisy,  isn't  she?  Eiver 
road;  beautiful  curves;  sweep  around  any  thing  to  keep  close  to  the 
river,  but  it's  all  steel  rail  and  rock  ballast,  single  track  all  the  way,  and 
not  a  side-track  from  the  roundhouse  to  the  terminus.  Takes  a  heap  of 
water  to  run  it  through;  double  tanks  at  every  station,  and  there  isn't 
an  engine  in  the  shops  that  can  pull  a  pound  or  run  a  mile  with  less 
than  two  gauges.  But  it  runs  through  a  lovely  country,  those  river 
roads  always  do;  river  on  one  side  and  hills  on  the  other,  and  it's  a 
steady  climb  up  the  grade  all  the  way  till  the  run  ends  where  the  fount- 
ain-head of  the  river  begins.  Yes,  sir;  I'll  take  the  river  road  every 
time  for  a  lovely  trip,  sure  connections  and  a  good  time,  and  no  prairie 
dust  blowing  in  at  the  windows.  And  yesterday,  when  the  conductor 
came  around  for  the  tickets  with  a  little  basket  punch,  I  didn't  ask  him 
to  pass  me,  but  I  paid  my  fare  like  a  little  man — twenty-five  cents  for 
an  hour's  run  and  a  little  concert  by  the  passengers  throwed  in.  I  tell 
you,  pilgrim,  you  take  the  river  road  when  your  want " 

But  just  here  the  long  whistle  from  the  engine  announced  a  station, 
and  the  brakeman  hurried  to  the  door,  shouting: 

"Zionsville!  The  train  makes  no  stops  between  here  and  Indian- 
apolis!" 

BUEDETTE'S  COUNTKY  PARSON. 

The  parson  of  a  country  church  was  lying  in  his  bed  ;  three  months,' 
arrears  of  salary  was  pillowing  his  head ;  his  couch  was  strewn  with 
tradesmen's  bills  that  pricked  his  sides  like  thorns,  and  nearly  all  life's 
common  ills  were  goading  him  with  thorns.  The  deacon  sat  beside  him, 
as  the  moments  ticked  away,  and  bent  his  head  to  catch  the  words  his 
pastor  had  to  say  : 

"  If  I  never  shall  arise  from  this  hard  bed  on  which  I  lie,  if  my  war- 
fare is  accomplished  and  it's  time  for  me  to  die,  take  a  message  to  the 


186  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT.      . 

sexton,  before  I  pass  away ;  tell  him  fires  are  for  December  and  open 
doors  for  May.  Tell  him  when  he  lays  the  notice  upon  the  pulpit's 
height  to  shove  them  'neath  the  cushion,  far  out  of  reach  and  sight. 
And  when  he  hears  the  preacher's  voice  in  whispers  soft  expire,  that  is 
the  time  to  slam  the  doors  and  rattle  at  the  fire.  And  tell  the  other 
deacons,  too,  all  through  the  busy  week,  to  hang  their  boots  up  in  the 
sun  to  hatch  a  Sunday  squeak  ;  with  steel-shod  canes  to  prod  the  man 
•who  comes  to  sleep  and  snore  ;  and  use  the  boys  who  laugh  in  church  to 
mop  the  vestry  floor.  There's  another,  too,  the  woman  who  talks  the 
sermon  through;  tell  her  I  will  not  mind  her  buzz — my  hearing  hours 
are  few;  tell  her  to  hang  her  mouth  up  some  Sunday  for  a  minute,  and 
listen  to  a  text,  at  least,  without  a  whisper  in  it.  And  tell  the  board  of 
trustees  not  to  weep  with  bitter  tears,  for  I  can't  be  any  deader  now 
than  they  have  been  for  years.  And  tell  half  my  congregation  I'm  glad 
salvation's  free,  for  that's  the  only  chance  for  them — between  the  desk 
and  me.  And  a  farewell  to  the  choir — how  the  name  my  memory 
racks!  If  they  could  get  up  their  voices  as  they  do  their  backs — why 
the  stars  would  hear  their  music  and  the  welkin  would  rejoice,  while 
the  happy  congregation  could  not  hear  a  single  voice.  But  tell  them  I 
forgive  them,  and  oh,  tell  them  I  said  I  wanted  them  to  sing  for  me — 
when  you're  sure  that  I  am  dead." 

His  voice  was  faint  and  hoarser,  but  it  gave  a  laughing  break,  a  kind 
of  gurgling  chuckle,  like  a  minister  might  make.  And  the  deacon  he 
rose  slowly,  and  sternly  he  looked  down  upon  the  parson's  twinkling 
eyes  with  a  portentous  frown,  and  he  stiffly  said  "  good  morning,"  as  he 
went  off  in  his  ire,  for  the  deacon  was  the  leader  of  that  amiable  choir. 


"ELI   PERKINS.' 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

Melville  D.  London  (Eli  Perkins)  was  born  in  Eaton,  Madison  County,  N.  Y., 
September  7,  1839.  He  graduated  at  Union  College,  Schenectady,  N.  Y.,  in  1861. 
His  father  was  John  Landon  from  Litchfield  County,  Conn.  Mr.  Landon  entered  the 
service  in  the  Clay  Battalion  in  Washington,  in  April,  1861;  was  in  the  United  States 
Treasury,  and  afterward  became  a  planter  in  Louisiana.  In  1867,  the  humorist  visited 
Europe,  and  was  selected  by  Cassius  M.  Clay,  as  Secretary  of  Legation  at  St. 
Petersburg!!.  Since  then  he  has  been  engaged  in  literature.  He  has  published  four 
books:  "The  History  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War,"  G.  W.  Carleton  &  Co.;  "Saratoga 
in  1901, "Sheldon  &  Co.;  "Eli  Perkins  at  Large. "Ford  and  Hurlbert,  and  "Wit  and 
Humor  of  the  Age,"  The  Western  Publishing  House,  Chicago.  He  has  delivered  thous' 
ands  of  humorous  and  philosophical  lectures  throughout  the  Union;  is  a  member  of  the 
American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  and  lives  with  an  accomplished 
wife  and  interesting  family,  in  a  beautiful,  brown  stone  residence,  44  East  Seventy 
sixth  street,  New  York. 

Melville  D.  Landon's  wit  and  humor  has  been  widely  copied, 
and  he  has  done  much  towards  a  philosophical  analysis  of  wit. 
Like  all  wits  he  deals  a  good  deal  in  the  imagination.  He  believes, 
and  proves  in  his  lectures,  that  all  wit  is  imagination,  while  all 
humor  is  the  absolute  truth  itself.  His  exaggerations  have  been  so 
much  on  the  Baron  Munchausen  order,  that  the  press  of  the  country 
are  always  referring  humorously  to  his  veracity. 

One  day  a  reporter  of  the  New  York  World  asked  Mr.  Perkins 
how  his  veracity  first  came  to  be  questioned. 

"Who  questioned  it  first?" 

"  Well,"  said  Eli,  "  I  don't  mind  telling  you  the  truth  about  this. 
The  name  Eli  ran  easily  into  alie,  olie  and  uli,  and  the  paragraphers 
have  used  it  as  a  lay  figure  to  hang  their  jokes  on.  Lewis,  of  the 
Detroit  Free  Press,  got  to  calling  me  Eliar  Perkins,  and  Josh 
Billings  said,  'truth  is  stranger  than  fiction — to  Eli  Perkins.' 

188 


ELI  PERKINS.  189 

"One  day  Nasby  wrote  this  paragraph:  'While  Eli  Perkins  was 
in  Toledo,  Congressman  Frank  Hurd  questioned  his  veracity.  This 
made  Eli  very  indignant,  and  he  immediately  challenged  Hurd  to  a 
deadly  duel.  On  the  morning  of  the  duel  Frank  Hurd  was  in  San 
Francisco,  and  Eli  was  in  Halifax.'  " 

"  What  was  the  funniest  paragraph  the  boys  ever  wrote  about 
you?" 

"  It  was  this  way:  I  wrote  up  the  Ohio  gas  wells  for  the  New 
York  Svn.  Of  course  I  described  them  glowingly  and  truthfully. 
Well,  the  Chicago  Times  copied  the  article  with  this  editorial 
paragraph : 

"  Our  readers  will  notice  that  in  another  column  Eli  Perkins  has  written  up  the 
Ohio  gas  wells.  He  speaks  very  favorably  of  them,  which  is  very  magnanimous  on 
the  part  of  Mr.  Perkins,  when  we  come  to  consider  that  these  gas  wells  are  the  only 
real  rivals  that  he  has." 

"  One  day,"  continued  Eli,  "  I  was  riding  in  the  Pullman  car 
with  Wm.  M.  Evarts,  our  distinguished  lawyer.  I  had  been  read- 
ing an  article  on  sleep,  in  a  health  paper,  and,  turning  to  Mr.  Evarts, 
I  said: 

"  '  Mr.  Evarts,  to  sleep  well,  is  it  the  best  to  lie  on  the  right  side 
or  on  the  left  side?' 

"  '  If  you  are  on  the  right  side,  Eli,'  said  the  great  lawyer,  *  it 
isn't  usually  necessary  to  lie  at  all.' ': 

Mr.  Perkins  always  looks  on  the  funny  side  of  all  questions,  and 
he  will  tell  a  joke  as  quick  at  his  own  expense,  as  at  the  expense  of 
his  brother  humorist. 

"  One  day,"  says  the  humorist,  "  a  young  gentleman  came  to  me 
on  the  Boston  and  Maine  train,  and,  smiling  and  bowing,  politely 
asked  me  if  I  was  the  gentleman  who  delivered  the  lecture  before 
the  Portsmouth  Y.  M.  C.  A.  the  night  before. 

"  I  am,"  said  Mr.  Perkins,  with  some  pride. 

"  Well,  I  want  to  thank  you  for  it.  I  don't  know  when  I  ever 
enjoyed  myself  more  than  when  you  were  talking." 

"  You  are  very  compliirtentav  "  said  Eli,  blushing  to  his  ears — 
"  very  complimentary.  I  am  g  i  my  humble  effort  was  worthy 
of  your  praise,"  and  the  complimented  humorist  took  the  young 
man  warmly  by  the  hand. 

"  Yes,"  continued  the  young  man,  "  it  gave  me  immense  pleas- 
ure. You  see  I  am  engaged  to  a  IV'tsmouth  girl,  and  her  three 


190  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

sisters  all  went,  and  I  had  my  girl  in  the  parlor  all  to  myself.  Oh, 
it  was  a  happy  night ! — the  night  you  lectured  in  Portsmouth ! 
When  are  you  going  to  lecture  there  again?  " 

At  another  time  the  Yale  football  team,  after  beating  Princeton, 
came  back  to  the  hotel  tired  and  exhausted. 

"  Landlord,"  said  the  tired  captain,  as  the  rest  of  the  team  were 
yawning  in  the  office,  after  supper — "I  say,  landlord,  is  there  any 
thing  quiet  in  the  amusement  line  going  on  in  Princeton  to-night  ? " 

"  Well,  there's  Eli  Perkins'  lecture  at  the  T.  M.  C.  A.  and " 

"  O,  that's  too  active.  He'll  keep  us  laughing  and  thinking.  We 
want  something  restful.  We  want  sleep — quiet  sleep." 

"  O  well,  then,"  said  the  landlord,  catching  at  a  new  idea,  "  try 
Joseph  Cook,  on  Evolution,  at  the  Methodist  Church.  That  comes 
the  nearest  to  bed-time  of  any  thing  in  Princeton  to-night." 

Speaking  of  short  courtship,  Eli  Perkins  says :  "  The  quickest 
courtship  I  ever  heard  of,  was  when  my  Uncle,  Consider  Perkins, 
courted  the  widow  Jenkins  up  in  Connecticut." 

"  How  sudden  was  the  courtship  ?" 

"  Well,  my  Uncle  Consider  cantered  his  horse  over  to  the  widow's 
farm  before  breakfast  one  morning,  hustled  into  the  house  and 
gasped: 

"  Widder  Jenkins,  I'm  a  man  of  business.  I  am  worth  $10,800, 
and  want  you  for  a  wife.  I  give  you  just  three  minutes  to  answer.' 

" '  I  don't  want  ten  seconds,  old  man,'  she  replied  as  she  shook  out 
the  dish  cloth.  'I'm  a  woman  of  business,  worth  $16,000,  and  I 
wouldn't  marry  you  if  you  were  the  last  man  on  earth!  I  give  you 
four  seconds  to  git! ' ; 

Mr.  Perkins  has  told  a  good  many  stories  on  Ben  Butler.  In  a 
political  speech,  Eli  said  :  "  There  was  an  old  Deacon  Butler,  of 
Lowell,  who  had  one  son,  Ben.  This  Ben  was  very  smart  at  every 
thing,  but  the  deacon  could  not  tell  what  profession  to  give  him.  So 
one  day  he  put  the  boy  in  a  room  with  a  Bible,  an  apple  and  a  dollar 
bill." 

" '  If  I  find  Ben  reading  the  Bible  when  I  return,'  said  the  deacon, 
'I  shaii  make  him  a  clergyman;  if  eating  the  apple,  a  farmer;  and 
if  interested  in  the  dollar  bill,  a  banker.' 

"  What  was  the  result  ? "  you  ask. 

"Well,"  said  Eli,  "when  the  deacon  returned  he  found  his  son 
sitting  on  the  Bible,  with  the  dollar  bill  in  his  pocket,  and  the  apple 
vlmost  devoured." 


ELI  PERKINS.  191 

"What  did  he  do  with  him  ?  " 

"  Why,  he  made  him  a  politician,  and  is  still  running  for  Gov- 
ernor of  Massachusetts.  Ben  is  still  devouring  that  apple." 

On  another  occasion  the  humorist  said  :  "  General  Butler  went 
into  a  hospital  in  Washington  not  long  since,  to  express  sympathy 
with  the  patients. 

" '  What  is  the  matter  with  you,  my  man  ? '  asked  the  General,  as 
he  gazed  at  a  man  with  a  sore  leg. 

"  '  Oh,  I've  got  gangrene,  General.' 

"  '  Gangrene  !  why,  that's  a  very  dangerous  disease,  my  man  — 
v-e-r-y  d-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s,'  said  General  Butler.  '  I  never  knew  a  man 
to  have  gangrene  and  recover.  It  always  kills  the  patient  or  leaves 
him  demented.  I've  had  it  myself.'  " 

To  pay  the  humorist  back  for  his  many  banterings,  Butler  arose 
at  a  dinner,  at  which  the  humorist  was  present,  and  said  : 

"  Gentlemen,  I  have  the  honor  of  knowing  three  of  the  greatest 
liars  —  the  greatest  living  liars  in  America." 

"  Who  are  they  ? "  asked  the  venerable  Sam  Ward,  as  he  dropped 
a  chicken  partridge  to  listen  to  the  General. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  the  General,  as  he  scratched  his  head  thought- 
fully, "  Mark  Twain  is  one,  and  Eli  Perkins  is  the  other  two!" 

One  day  I  asked  Mr.  Perkins  to  tell  me  the  most  disagreeable 
position  he  was  ever  placed  in. 

"  Well,"  said  Eli,  "  it  was  when  I  was  a  witness  —  when  Lawyer 
Johnson  had  me  as  a  witness  in  a  wood  case.  In  my  direct  testi- 
mony I  had  sworn  truthfully  that  John  Hall  had  cut  ten  cords  of 
wood  in  three  days.  Then  Johnson  sharpened  his  pencil  and  com- 
menced examining  me. 

'Now,  Mr.  Perkins,'  he  began,  'how  much  wood  do  you  say  was 
cut  by  Mr.  Hall?' 

'  Just  ten  cords,  sir,'  I  answered,  boldly.     '  I  measured  it.' 

'  That's  your  impression  ? ' 

'  Yes,  sir.' 

*  Well,  we  don't  want  impressions,  sir.     What  we  want  is  facts, 
before  this  jury  —  f  a-c  t-s,  sir,  facts! ' 

*  The  witness  will  please  state  facts  hereafter,'  said  the  Judge, 
while  the  crimson  came  to  my  face. 

'  Now,  sir,'  continued  Johnson,  pointing  his  finger  at  me,  '  will 
you  swear  that  it  was  more  than  nine  cords  ? ' 


192  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

1  Yes,  sir.     It  was  ten  cords —  just — ' 

'  There !  never  mind/  interrupted  Johnson.  '  Now,  how  much 
less  than  twelve  cords  were  there  ? ' 

'  Two  cords,  sir.' 

'  How  do  you  know  there  were  just  two  cords  less,  sir  ?  Did 
you  measure  these  two  cords,  sir  ? '  asked  Johnson,  savagely. 

'  No,  sir,  I  — ' 

*  There,  that  will  do!  You  did  not  measure  it.  Just  as  I 
expected.  All  guess  work.  Now  didn't  you  swear  a  moment  ago 
that  you  measured  this  wood  ? ' 

'Yes,  sir,  but ' 

'  Stop,  sir!     The  jury  will  note  this  discrepancy.' 

'Now,  sir,' continued  Johnson,  slowly,  as  he  pointed  his  finger 
almost  down  my  throat,  'Now,  sir,  on  your  oath,  will  you  swear 
that  there  were  not  ten  cords  and  a  half?' 

'Yes,  sir,'  I  answered  meekly. 

'  "Well  now,  Mr.  Perkins,  I  demand  a  straight  answer — a  truth- 
ful answer,  sir.'  'Now,  on  your  solemn  oath,  ho\v  many  cords  were 
there  ?.' 

<  T — T — Ten  c-c-cords,'  I  answered,  hesitatingly. 

'  You  swear  it  2 ' 

<I_I_d— d— do.' 

'Now,'  continued  Johnson,  as  he  smiled  satirically, '  do  you  know 
the  penalty  of  perjury,  sir  ? ' 

4  Yes,  sir,  I  think ' 

'  Never  mind  what  you  think,  sir.  Thoughts  and  opinions  are- 
not  facts.  Now  I  say,  on  your  oath,  on  your  s-o-l-e-m-n  oath,  with 
no  evasion,  are  you  willing  to  perjure  yourself  by  solemnly  swear- 
ing that  there  were  more  than  nine  cords  of  wood  ? ' 

'  Yes,  sir,  I ' 

'Aha!  Yes,  sir.  You  are  willing  to  perjure  yourself  then? 
Just  as  I  thought  (turning  to  the  Judge);  you  see,  your  Honor,  that 
this  witness  is  prevaricating.  He  is  not  willing  to  swear  that  there 
were  more  than  nine  cords  of  wood.  It  is  infamous,  gentlemen  of 
the  jury,  such  testimony  as  this."  The  jury  nodded  assent  and 
smiled  sarcastically  at  me. 

'Now/  said  Johnson,  'I  will  ask  this  perjured  witness  just  one 
more  question.' 

'I  ask  you,  sir — do  you  know — do  you  realize,  sir,  what  an 
awful — a-w-f-u-1  thing  it  is  to  tell  a  lie  \ ' 


ELI  PERKINS.  193 

*  Yes,  sir,'  I  said,  my  voice  trembling. 

'  And,  knowing  this,  you  swear  on  your  solemn  oath  that  there 
were  about  nine  cords  of  wood  ? ' 

'  No,  sir,  I  don't  do  any  thing  of ' 

•'Hold  on,  sir!  Now  how  do  you  know  there  were  just  nine 
cords  ? ' 

'I  don't  know  any  such  thing,  sir !     I — 

'  Aha !  you  don't  know  then  ?  Just  as  I  expected.  And  yet  you 
swore  you  did  know.  Swore  you  measured  it.  Infamous !  Gen- 
tlemen of  the  jury,  what  shall  we  do  with  this  perjurer? ' 

'Butl- 

*  Not  a  word,  sir — hush !  This  jury   shall  not  be  insulted  by  a 
perjurer ! 

'  Call  the  next  witness ! ' 

" '  This  is  why,'  said  the  humorist,  '  that  I  am  now  unfit  to  keep 
the  books  in  a  lunatic  asylum.' " 

"When  I  asked  the  humorist  how  it  happened  that  he  became  a 
writer  and  lecturer,  he  said,  gravely : 

"  I  studied  law  once  in  the  Washington  Law  School.  In  fact,  I 
was  admitted  to  the  bar.  I  shall  never  forget  my  first  case.  Neither 
will  my  client.  I  was  called  upon  to  defend  a  young  man  for  pass-, 
ing  counterfeit  money.  I  knew  the  young  man  was  innocent, 
because  I  lent  him  the  money  that  caused  Jiirn  to  be  arrested.  Well, 
there  was  a  hard  feeling  against  the  young  man  in  the  county,  and 
I  pleaded  for  a  change  of  venue.  I  made  a  great  plea  for  it.  I  can 
remember,  even  now,  how  fine  it  was.  It  was  filled  with  choice 
rhetoric  and  passionate  oratory.  I  quoted  Kent  and  Blackstone 
and  Littleton,  and  cited  precedent  after  precedent  from  the  Digest 
of  State  Reports.  I  wound  up  with  a  tremendous  argument,  amid 
the  applause  of  all  the  younger  members  of  the  bar.  Then,  san- 
guine of  success,  I  stood  and  awaited  the  Judge's  decision.  It  soon 
came.  The  Judge  looked  me  full  in  the  face  and  said  : 

"  Your  argument  is  good,  Mr.  Perkins,  very  good,  and  I've  been 
deeply  interested  in  it,  and  when  a  case  comes  up  that  your  argu- 
ment fits,  I  shall  give  your  remarks  all  the  consideration  that  they 
merit.  Sit  down  ! ' 

"  This  is  why  I  gave  up  law  and  resorted  to  lecturing  and  writing 
for  the  newspapers." 


194  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Eli  Perkins'  witty  and  humorous  articles  would  fill  volumes,  and 
his  name  will  go  down  to  posterity  and  become  brighter  and 
brighter  as  the  people  find  out  what  a  vast  amount  of  good  literary 
work  he  has  done. 


ELI  PERKINS*  LECTURE. 

THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF  WIT  AND   HUMOR. 

The  aim  of  Mr.  Landon  in  his  lectures  has  always  been  to  convey  truth  as  well 
as  to  produce  laughter.  His  sharp  distinction  between  wit  and  humor  is  consis- 
tently and  strongly  carried  through  his  lectures  and  writings.  Heretofore,  humor 
has  usually  been  placed  over  wit.  Mr.  Landon  proves  that  wit  is  more  intellectual 
than  humor.  He  separates  satire  and  ridicule,  Showing  that  satire  is  to  kill  error, 
while  ridicule  is  to  kill  truth. 

In  representing  a  live  lecture,  bristling  with  gesture,  genuine  eloquence,  or 
mock  oratory,  the  cold  dead  types  can  convey  but  a  vague  idea.  Much  is  left  to  the 
lively  Imagination  of  the  reader. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — Before  making  any  remark  on  the  subject 
of  "Wit  and  Humor/'  we  will  first  ask  the  simple,  natural  questions, 
What  are  "  Wit  and  Humor ?"  What  is  it  that  produces  laughter?  Here 
we  all  laugh  a  hundred  times  a  day ;  now,  I  say,  what  is  it  that  produces 
this  laughter? 

I  know  the  old  rhetoricians,  Lord  Kames  and  Whateley  and  Blair 
and  Wayland,  all  tell  us  that  "wit  is  a  short-lived  surprise" — that 
laughter  is  always  produced  by  a  "  short-lived  surprise ; "  and  there 
they  stop.  But  that  is  a  false  definition.  False?  Prove  it!  If  wit  were 
a  "short-lived  surprise/' as  they  say,  that  is,  if  laughter  were  caused 
by  a  "  short-lived  surprise/'  then  those  railroad  passengers  who  pitched 
over  Ashtabula  bridge  must  have  screamed  with  laughter — for  it  was  a 
"  short-lived  surprise."  [Laughter.] 

Again:  Suppose  you  were  walking  along  and  a  serpent  should  dart 
out  in  front  of  you.  It  would  be  a  "  short-lived  surprise/'  but  it  would 
not  produce  any  laughter — would  it?  But  if  you  were  walking  along 
and  you  should  see  a  double-headed  rooster  —  running  both  ways  to  get 
away  from  itself — [laughter]  you  all  would  burst  out  laughing. 

So  you  see,  my  friends,  that  laughter  is  not  always  produced  by  a  "short- 
lived surprise,"  but  laughter  is  always  caused  by  some  deformity,  some 
eccentricity  in  art  or  nature.  But  that  deformed  thing  which  makes  us 
laugh  is  something  which  we  neither  love  nor  hate  ;  for  laughter  is  an 
emotion  and  not  a  passion.  You  wouldn't  laugh  at  your  «wn  deformed 


ELI  PERKINS,  195 

child,  because  you  love  it.  But  you  would  laugh  at  something  which 
you  neither  love  nor  hate — like  deformed  music — you  neither  love  it  nor 
hate  it — deformed  grammar,  deformed  rhetoric,  deformed  spelling,  de- 
formed oratory,  deformed  gesture  and  deformed  truth  itself.  You 
would  not  laugh  at  a  chariot  wheel  rolling  grandly  down  the  street,  and 
nothing,  says  Hogarth,  is  more  beautiful  than  a  rolling  wheel;  but  disli 
that  wheel,  pull  the  spokes  over  and  let  it  come  along  lop-sided  and  you 
would  all  burst  out  laughing. 

Now,  as  we  never  laugh  at  a  perfect  thing,  we  never  laugh  at  the 
climax  in  rhetoric.  The  climax  is  a  perfect  sentence ;  but  we  do  all 
laugh  at  the  anti-climax,  which  is  a  deformed  sentence — a  case  where 
that  same  perfect  sentence  runs  right  against  a  post  and  breaks  off. 

As  good  an  example  of  the  anti-climax  as  I  know  of  occurred  over  in 
New  Jersey  the  other  day.  A  good  old  colored  clergyman  was  describ- 
ing a  storm,  and  he  pictured  it  something  like  this: 

"  The  winds  howled  like  the  roaring  of  Niagara ;  the  thunder  rum- 
bled and  grumbled  and  pealed  like  Vesuvius  laboring  with  an  earth- 
quake ;  the  lurid  lightnings  flashed  through  the  sky  like — like — sixty  ! " 
[Laughter.] 

Now,  if  that  comparison  had  been  complete,  there  would  have  been 
no  laughter.  What  did  we  laugh  at  ?  We  laughed  at  deformed  rhet- 
oric. The  deformity  causes  both  the  surprise  and  laughter.  Without 
it  there  could  be  neither. 

Suppose  your  physician  should  give  you  as  lame  a  definition  as  the 
rhetoricians  have  been  giving  you  for  a  thousand  years?  Suppose, 
when  you  asked  him  what  killed  his  patients,  he  should  say,  "  My 
patients  died  from  want  of  breath  ! " 

"But  what  caused  the  want  of  breath?" 

"Oh,  the  genus,  disease — species,  small-pox!"     [Laughter.] 

What  we  want  is  the  cause  of  the  cause,  so  to-night  I  give  you  the 
genus  and  species  of  all  deformities  which  will  cause  laughter.  No,  not 
all  of  the  deformities — we  haven't  time  to  talk  about  deformed  music; 
but  you  know  if  some  one  were  playing  a  beautiful  symphony  on  an 
organ  here,  and  a  key  should  get  caught  and  S-Q-U-E-A-K!  should  go 
through  the  audience  [laughter],  how  you  would  all  burst  out  laughing. 

We  haven't  time  to  talk  about  deformed  spelling,  but  you  all  know 
that  two-thirds  of  dear  old  Josh  Billings'  wit  was  caused  by  deformed 
spelling;  half  of  Nasby's  wit  was  deformed  spelling,  and  the  funniest 
thing  in  Thackeray's  "  Yellow  Plush  Papers  "  was  when  he  spelled  gen- 
tlemen "gen'lemen." 

13 


19G  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

All  the  dialects,  too  —  the  Dutch  dialect,  Irish  dialect  and  negro  dia- 
lect—  are  fanny;  and  why?  Because  they  are  a  language  deformed.  I 
could  tell  you  a  simple  story  in  plain  English,  and  you  wouldn't  smile  at 
all,  and  then  I  could  tell  that  same  story  in  an  Irish,  Scotch,  Dutch  or 
negro  dialect,  and  you  would  all  burst  out  laughing.  So,  if  you  ever 
have  a  story  that  isn't  funny  enough  to  suit  you,  put  it  into  any  dialect 
that  you  can  command,  and  you'll  double  the  fun  of  it.  To  illustrate 
the  fun  of  dialect: 

One  frosty  morning  I  met  a  German,  shivering  with  the  cold,  and 
remarked: 

"  Hans,  you  have  frozen  your  nose." 

"  Nein,  he  froze  hisself,  Mr.  Berkins." 

"How  did  it  happen,  Hans?" 

"I  no  understand  dis  ting.  I  haf  carry  dot  nose  dese  fordy  year, 
unt  he  nefer  freeze  hisself  before."  [Laughter.] 

A  good  instance  of  Irish  brogue,  or  dialect,  is  instanced  in  Mrs. 
Colonel  Kelly's  cross-examination  in  the  O'Toolihau  suit  for  damages. 

"You  claim,  Mrs.  Colonel  Kelly,"  said  the  Judge,  "that  Mrs. 
O'Toolihan  gave  you  that  bruised  and  blackened  face?" 

"  She  did,  yer  Honor — indade  she  did,  or  I'm  not  Irish  born." 

"And  what  you  wanti?  damages,  Mrs.  Kelly?" 

"It  is  damages  yez  says,  yer  Honor?  Damages!  No,  bad  luck  ter 
the  O'Toolihan,  I  have  dam-ages  enough.  I  wants  sat-is-fac-shun, 
begorry!"  [Laughter.] 

Another  case.  John  Quinn,  our  Irish  waiter,  jerked  his  finger  out 
of  a  box  of  turtles,  and  held  it  up  in  great  pain. 

"  What  are  you  doing  there,  John?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  wor  investigating." 

"Investigating  what?" 

"I  wor  trying  to  see  which  was  the  head  and  which  was  the  tail  ov 
that  baste  over  there  in  the  corner  ov  the  box." 

"  What  do  you  want  to  know  that  for?  " 

"  I've  a  curiosity  to  know  whether  I've  been  bit  or  stung."  [Laugh- 
ter.] 

Again,  an  Irish  judge,  who  had  been  over  from  the  old  sod  but  two 
years,  was  examining  a  Corkonian  who  had  just  arrived  in  New  York. 

"  Phat's  yer  name,  yez  spalpeen?"  he  asked. 

"  Patrick  McGoolihan,  yer  Honor." 

"Is  it  an  Irishman  yez  are?  Begorra,  yez  shows  it  by  yer  sthrong 
wakeness  for  the  Oirish  accint." 

"  Yis,  yer  Honor;  I  was  born  abroad." 


ELI  PERKINS.  197 

"  That's  what  oi  thought,  sorr.  Yer  accint  is  f roightful.  Yer  not 
in  Oirland,  mon,  and  yez  should  spake  our  Unighted  Shtates  toong  more 
dacently  and  not  be  givin'  uz  yer  f  urren  brogue." 

Nothing  is  more  amusing  than  to  hear  that  rich,  Irish  brogue: 

' '  Phat  is  this  I  see,  Moike  ?  "  asked  Mr.  O'Kelly.  « «  And  is  it  dhrinkin 
whiskey  yez  are?  Sure  it  was  only  yestherday  ye  towld  me  ye  was  a 
taytotler." 

"Well,  your  right,  Mister  O'Kelly,"  said  Mike,  "it's  quoite  right  ye 
are  —  I  am  a  taytotler,  it's  true,  but  begorra  I'd  have  ye  understhand 
I  —  I — I'm  not  a  bigoted  taytotler."  * 

Scotch  dialect  is  always  dry  and  funny: 

"  Dae  ye  ken,"  said  a  member  of  the  Newark  Caledonian  Club,  as  he 
walked  homeward  from  church  with  a  fellow-countryman,  "  dae  ye  ken, 
I  think  oor  minister's  in  the  habit  o'  gemblin*  ?  " 

"What  gars  ye  think  that?" 

"  I'll  tell  ye,  Sandy.  Ae  Sunday  no  lang  ago  in  his  prayer  instead 
o' saying,  0,  Thou  who  hast  the  hearts  of  kingsin  Thy  hands,  he  prayed, 
'  0,  Thou,  who  has  the  king  of  hearts  in  Thy  hands.'  What  dae  ye 
think  o' that?" 

"It  dis'na  look  richt,"  commented  the  other,  shaking  his  head  sadly. 

The  simplest  incident,  if  told  with  a  dialect,  will  produce  laughter. 
For  instance: 

Two  Germans  met  in  San  Francisco.  After  affectionate  greeting, 
the  following  dialogue  ensued: 

"  Fen  you  said  you  hev  arrived?" 

"Yesterday." 

"  You  came  dot  Horn  around?" 

"No." 

"  Oh  !  I  see;  you  came  dot  isthmus  across?" 

"No." 

"  Oh  !  den  you  come  dot  land  over?  " 

"No." 

"  Den  you  hef  not  arrived?" 

"Oh!  yes,  I  hef  arrived.  I  come  dot  Mexico  throught."  [Laughter.] 

The  Hebrew  dialect  is  funny  because  it  is  simple,  and  every  one  can 
understand  it.  Yet  many  Hebrew  stories  would  be  ruined  if  told  in 
good  English.  For  instance: 

One  day  I  met  my  friend  Jacob  from  Chatham  street.  He  looked 
very  sad,  and  I  said: 

"  Why  so  gloomy  this  morning,  Jacob?  " 

"Ah,  my  poor  leetle  Penjamin  Levi — he  is  tead!" 

"Dead?    You  surprise  me.     How  did  that  happen?" 


198  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Veil,  you  see,  my  leetle  Penjamin  he  vas  at  der  synagogue  to  say 
his  brayers,  and  a  boy  put  his  het  at  der  door  and  gries,  '  Job  Lot ! '  and 
leetle  Penjamin — he  vas  gilt  in  der  grush."  [Laughter.] 

The  Chinese  dialect,  or  pigeon  English,  is  always  funny. 

Mrs.  Van  Auken,  of  Fifth  avenue,  recently  employed  a  Chinese 
cook — Ah  Sin  Foo.  When  the  smiling  Chinaman  came  to  take  his 
place,  Mrs.  Van  Auken  asked  him  his  name. 

"  What  is  your  name,  John?  "  commenced  the  lady. 

"  Oh  !  my  namee,  Ah  Sin  Foo." 

"But  I  can't  remember  all  that  lingo,  my  man.  I  '11  call  you 
Jimmy." 

"Velly  wellee.  Now  what  chee  namee  I  calleeyou?"  asked  Ah  Sin, 
looking  up  in  sweet  simplicity. 

"Well,  my  name  is  Mrs.  Van  Auken;  call  me  that." 

"  Oh  !  me  can  no  'member  Missee  Vannee  Auken.  Too  big  piecee 
namee.  I  calleeyoti  Tommy — Missee  Tommy."  [Laughter.] 

The  Italian  dialect  is  sweet  and  laughter-provoking.  A  New  York 
policeman  thus  accosted  an  Italian  organ-grinder: 

"  Have  you  a  permit  to  grind  this  organ  in  the  street?" 

"No.     Me  no  habbe  de  permit." 

"Then,  sir,  it  becomes  my  duty  to  request  you  to  accompany  me — " 

"Allarighta.     Vatta  you  sing?"    [Laughter.] 

The  dialect  of  the  dude  is  very  modern,  but  we  recognize  it  as  a 
deformed  language. 

"Going  widing  to-day,  Awthaw?"  asked  one  dude  of  another. 

"Naw.     Got  to  work,  demmit." 

"So  sawy,  deah  boy.     What  is  the — aw — blawsted  job,  eh?" 

"  Maw's  written  me  a  lettaw,  and  I've — aw — got  to  wead  it  befaw  I 
can  make  another  dwaft  on  haw.  Did  you  evaw  heah  of  such  a  boah?" 

"Nevaw,  deah  boy,  nevaw."    [Laughter.] 

Dialect  itself  is  funny,  but  when  you  clothe  a  witty  idea  in  dialect  it 
doubles  the  fun.  For  instance:  I  lectured  in  a  good  old  Quaker  town 
up  in  Pennsylvania  a  few  weeks  ago,  and  after  the  lecture,  the  lecture 
committee  came  to  me  with  my  fee  in  his  hand,  and  said,  as  he  counted 
the  roll  of  bills: 

"Eli,  my  friend,  does  thee  believe  in  the  maxims  of  Benjamin 
Franklin?" 

"Yea,"  I  said. 

"Well,  friend  Eli,  Benjamin  Franklin,  in  his  Poor  Richard  maxims, 
says  that  'Time  is  money.'" 


ELI  PERKINS.  199 

"Yea,  verily,  I  have  read  it,"  I  said. 

"Well,  Eli,  if  'Time  is  money/  as  thy  friend,  Poor  Richard,  says, 
and  thee  believe  so,  then  verily  I  will  keep  the  money  and  let  thee  take 
it  out  in  time."  [Laughter.] 

The  deformed  language  of  the  colored  preacher  always  produces 
laughter  among  the  whites,  while  the  colored  auditors,  who  do  not  see 
the  deformity,  never  dream  of  smiling. 

So  I  always  love  to  hear  the  good  old  orthodox  colored  preacher.  He 
may  trip  in  his  grammar  and  pronounce  his  words  wrong,  but  the  child- 
like faith  of  the  true  Christian  is  always  there.  I  heard  a  sermon  once 
from  a  dear,  good  old  clergyman,  who  had  once  been  a  slave  in  Mary- 
land, and  who  had  converted  many  souls.  The  words  were  often  wrong 
but  the  true  spirit  was  there.  I  remember  the  old  man  started  off  with 
these  words: 

"  I  takes  my  tex*  dis  maunin',  bredrin',  from  dat  portion  ob  de  scrip- 
ter  whar  de  Postol  Paul  points  his  pistol  to  de  Fenians. "  [Laughter.] 

Do  not  laugh  my  friends,  for  the  old  man  grew  very  eloquent  over 
the  text.  He  implored  the  thoughtless  young  men  to  be  kind  to  their 
fathers  and  mothers.  "  Don't  wed  yerself  to  strange  godeses/'  he  said, 
"an*  leave  yer  ol'  fadder  an*  mudder  to  starve."  [Laughter.] 

"  Why,  bress  yer  soul,  young  men,"  he  continued,  "  I'ze  got  an'  oF 
mudder,  an*  I  hab  to  do  f  o'  her,  ye  see,  an*  ef  I  don't  buy  her  shoes  an* 
stockin's  she  don't  get  none.  Now,  ef  I  war  to  get  married,  young  men, 
I'd  hab  to  buy  des  fings  for  my  wife,  an*  dat  would  be  taking  de  shoes 
and  stockin's  right  out  o'  my  mudder' s  moyf."  [Laughter.] 

In  the  evening,  said  Mr.  Perkins,  the  good  old  preacher,  in  announc- 
ing his  text,  said: 

"  Dis  ebenin',  brederin',  de  Lord  willin',  I  will  preach  from  de  tex*, 
"An  St.  Paul  planted  and  Apollinaris  watered."  [Laughter.] 

Deformed  words  will  always  produce  laughter.  All  the  wit  in  Mrs. 
Malaprop's  and  in  Mrs.  Partington's  sayings  was  caused  by  using  de- 
formed words.  See  how  funny  is  a  paragraph  from  that  dignified  man, 
Benjamin  P.  Shellabar. 

"Diseases  is  very  various," said  Mrs.  Partington.  "Now  they  say 
old  Mrs.  Haze  has  got  two  buckles  on  her  lungs.  Deacon  Sempson  has 
got  tonsors  of  the  throat.  Aunt  Mary  Smith  is  dying  of  hermitage  of 
the  lungs,  and  now  "Josh  Billings"  finds  himself  in  a  jocular  vein. 
New  names  and  new  nostrils  every  where!" 

"They  say  Mrs.  Putnam,  who  has  such  a  lovely  husband,  can't  bear 
children, "  I  remarked. 


200  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"Perhaps  if  she  could  she  would  like  them  better, "  replied  the  old 
lady,  disdainfully.  Then  she  wiped  her  glasses  and  looked  over  them  to 
read  the  close  type  in  the  advertisements. 

When  her  eye  wandered  down  the  amusement  column  she  read  that 
it  the  Academy  of  Music  the  "Prayer  of  Moses  was  being  executed  on 
one  string/' 

"The  Prayer  of  Moses  executed  on  one  string/' she  repeated.  "Well, 
J  declare!  Praying  to  be  cut  down  I  suppose.  Poor  Moses! "she  sighed, 
"executed  on  one  string!  [Laughter.]  Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  ever  heard 
of  any  body  being  executed  on  two  strings,  unless  the  rope  broke." 
[Laughter.] 

Again:  A  deformed  quotation  will  produce  laughter.  This  is  why 
the  parody,  which  is  the  original  poem  deformed,  always  amuses  people. 
Jo  Mills,  the  brother  of  D.  0.  Mills,  used  to  open  oysters,  but  becoming 
rich,  he  joined  the  stock  exchange,  and  while  on  Wall  street,  he  kept 
all  the  bankers  laughing  at  his  deformed  quotations.  Once,  on  return- 
ing from  Havana  to  Key  West,  he  telegraphed  August  Belmont,  to  tell 
the  brokers  that  after  a  stormy  sail  he  had  at  last  landed  on  Terre  Cotta. 
[Laughter.]  When  Mr.  Mills  arrived  in  New  York,  Eussell  Sage  asked 
him,  how  he  felt.  "I  felt  very  bad  before  the  trip," said  Jo,  "but  now, 
slapping  his  leg  with  his  hand,  I  feel  new  plus  ulster."  [Laughter.] 

Stammering  stories  are  a  species  of  dialect,  and  are  funny  on  account 
of  the  deformity  of  the  language.  To  illustrate  a  stammering  story: 

I  was  lecturing  up  at  Ballston  Spa,  and  the  chairman  of  the  lecture 
committee,  Major  Stevens,  who  is  a  great  stammerer,  was  rather  late  in 
calling  on  me  at  the  hotel.  When  he  finally  came,  I  said: 

"  Major,  where've  you  been?    Where've  you  been?" 

"  I've  b — b — been  down  to,  been  d — d — down  t — t — to — to " 

"Where  did  you  say?"    [Laughter.] 

"I've  been  d — d— down  to  A — A — Albany,  the  c — c — c — capital/' 

"  What  have  you  been  down  to  Albany  for?" 

"  I've  b — b — been  there  to  see  the  m — m — members  of  the  leg — leg — 
legislature/' 

"  What  did  you  want  to  see  the  members  of  the  legislature  for?  " 

"  Well,  I  wanted  to  get  'em  to  c — c— -change  the  state  con — consti — 
constitution/' 

"  Why,  what  did  you  want  to  change  the  New  York  State  constitu- 
tion for?" 

"Because  the  st — st — state  constitution  g — g — guarantees  to  ev — 
ev— every  m — m — man  f — f — free  s — s — speech,  and  I  w — w — want  it  or 
I  w — w — want  the  d — d — darned  thing  changed!  "  [Loud  laughter.] 


ELI  PERKINS.  201 

There  is  another  deformity  that  I  will  refer  to,  very  prolific  of 
laughter — deformed  grammar.  To  illustrate:  I  saw  a  little  girl  learn- 
ing to  read  the  other  day. 

Said  I:  "Little  girl,  didn't  you  have  a  hard  time  learning  to  read  ?" 

"  Yes/'  she  said,  "  I  did  have  a  hard  time — a  very  hard  time  learning 
to  read,  but  I  kept  on  learning  to  read — kept  on  learning  to  read  and 
bime-by  I  rode."  [Laughter.] 

Another  instance  of  deformed  grammar:  Two  little  girls  were  play- 
ing in  their  play-house.  They  had  a  mock  kitchen  and  one  of  them  was 
passing  the  pickles,  tomatoes  and  potatoes  to  the  other,  when  finally  one 
took  a  potato  on  a  fork  and  said  : 

"Shall  I  skin  this  potatoe  for  you  Jenny?" 

"No,"  replied  Jenny,  "you  needn't  skin  that  potato  for  me;  I  have 
one  already  'skun.'"  [Laughter.]  * 

Another  instance  of  deformed  grammar — well  it  occurred  at  the 
hotel  where  I'm  staying,  not  ten  minutes  ago :  I  heard  a  couple  of  chamber- 
maids talking  in  the  hall.  They  were  talking  about  "banging"  their 
hair.  One  of  them  asked  the  other  if  she  banged  her  hair. 

""Yes,  "  she  said,  "I  ba-ba-bang  my  hair — I  keep  banging  my  hair, 
but  it  don't  stay  b-b-bung!     [Great  laughter.] 

One  Sunday  morning  I  attended  Dr.  Potter's  service  in  Grace  Church, 
New  York.  After  waiting  a  while  I  dropped  into  one  of  the  back  pews. 
The  owner  soon  came  in,  and  seeing  me  sitting  in  her  pew  nervously 
approached  Sexton  Brown  and  said : 

"Mr.  Brown  why  do  you  permit  a  stranger  to  occupew  my  pie?" 
[Laughter.] 

Listen  to  the  deformed  grammar  in  the  stanza  about  the  cautious 
burglar: 

A  cautious  look  around  he  stole, 

His  bags  of  chink  he  chunk; 
And  many  a  wicked  smile  he  smole, 
And  many  a  wink  he  wunk. 

You  would  hardly  think  that  a  deformed  quotation  will  always  pro- 
duce laughter.  Now,  how  often  have  you  heard  the  quotation  "  I  have 
other  fish  to  fry?"  When  you  used  the  expression  you  did  not  really 
mean  that  you  were  really  going  out  to  cook  any  fish.  You  simply  said 
it  to  indicate  haste,  but  while  in  Boston,  General  Butler  said  that  one 
day  he  was  returning  home  from — prayer  meeting  [laughter]  when  he 
overheard  a  young  Harvard  student  saying  good-bye  to  his  Boston  sweet- 
heart. He  was  just  saying  good-bye,  had  just  kissed  her  ear  (left  ear 
over  the  gate)  the  last,  last  time,  when  he  said,  "  There  !  Good-bye, 


202  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Mariah,   I  must  go  now.    Fve  got  to  go  and  cook  another  fish!" 
[Laughter.] 

There  is  one  other  deformity  which  is  a  great  source  of  laughter,  and 
that  is  deformed  logic,  and  where  do  we  find  deformed  logic? 

Why,  every  single  pun  or  conundrum  that  was  ever  made  in  the 
English  language  is  simply  the  deformed  logic  of  Aristotle  and  Plato 
in  another  form,  and  those  old  Greeks  used  to  laugh  at  the  very  satne 
puns  and  conundrums  that  we  do,  and  they  laughed  at  them  in  the 
form  of  a  syllogism,  while  we  laugh  at  them  in  the  modern  form  of  the 
pun  and  conundrum.  To  prove  this  I  will  make  a  conundrum  and 
then  change  it  to  a  false  syllogism. 

Now,  why  are  conundrums  funny? 

It  is  because  in  every  conundrum  you  prove  something  to  be  true 
which  you  really  know  to  be  false.  It  is  the  false  logic  that  you  are 
laughing  at.  To  prove  this  I  will  make  a  conundrum  and  change  it  to 
the  syllogistic  form  of  the  Greeks. 

I  will  make  a  conundrum  about  that  distinguished  colored  statesman 
—  that  learned  colored  man  —  Fred  Douglass — proving  something  to  be 
true  about  him  that  you  know  to  be  false: 

Conundrum:     Why  is  Fred  Douglass  a  very  wicked  man? 

Answer:     Because  he  is  supported  by  black  legs. 

Now,  the  syllogist  would  put  this  conundrum  into  a  syllogism  like 
this: 

First  premise:    Any  one  supported  by  black  legs  must  be  very  wicked. 

Second  premise:     Frederick  Douglass  is  supported  by  black  legs. 

Conclusion:     Therefore,  Frederick  Douglass  must  be  very  wicked. 

In  both  cases  an  untruth  has  been  proven  by  false  logic. 

Now,  the  syllogism,  or  deformed  logic,  was  the  common  form  of  all 
wit  among  the  Greeks.  For  instance,  Aristippus  came  into  Athens  one 
day,  and  saw  Diogenes,  and  instead  of  giving  him  a  conundrum,  he  gave 
him  this  syllogism: 

"  All  words,  0  Diogenes,"  said  Aristippus,  "come  out  of  your  mouth, 
do  they  not?" 
1    "Yes,  granted.     All  words  do  come  out  of  my  mouth." 

"Well,  snakes  and  toads  are  words,  aren't  they?  Then  they  come 
out  of  your  mouth."  [Laughter.] 

We  have  changed  a  conundrum  to  a  syllogism,  and  now  we  will 
change  a  syllogism  to  a  conundrum.  We  will  prove  a  hen  to  be  immor- 
tal by  both. 


ELI  PERKINS.  203 

Syllogism:     (Major)  —  Any  one  whose  sun  never  sets  is  immortal. 
(Minor)  —  A  hen's  son  never  sets. 
(Conclusion)  —  Therefore,  a  hen  is  immortal. 

[Laughter.] 

The  conundrum  would  be:  "  Why  is  a  hen  immortal?  Because  her 
son  never  sets." 

Now,  up  to  this  time  we  have  spoken  of  the  ordinary,  regular  conun- 
drum; but  we  can  have  a  deformed  conundrum.  A  deformed  conun- 
drum is  a  case  where  the  conundrum  kicks  back,  or  where  the  answer  is 
different  from  what  you  expect.  It  is  a  kind  of  conundrum  that  a  smart, 
shrewd  boy  generally  gives  to  his  poor  old  father,  when  he  comes  home 
from  college.  [Laughter.]  I  remember  I  got  one  on  to  my  father 
when  I  returned  home  from  college  [laughter],  and  he  turned  round  to 
a  neighbor,  the  tears  streaming  down  his  cheeks,  and  said,  ( '  Brother 
Jones,  that  conundrum  cost  me  seven  hundred  dollars."  [Laughter.] 

To  illustrate  one  of  these  deformed  conundrums:  Henry  Bergh  gave 
me  one  just  before  he  died,  and  Fve  been  trying  for  six  months 
to  find  out  what  he  meant  by  it.  He  died  without  giving  me  the 
answer.  [Laughter.]  Perhaps  you  can  help  me  out.  He  came  tome 
and  said  he  had  a  deformed  conundrum. 

"What  is  it,  Mr.  Bergh  ?" 

"  Well,  what  is  the  difference  between  your  mother-in-law  and  a 
tree?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  said;  "  I  don't  think  there  is  much  difference. 
[Laughter.]  But  what  is  the  difference  ?" 

"Well,  the  difference  is  this:  A  tree  leaves  every  spring — and — and 
— ."  [Loud  laughter  interrupted  the  lecturer.] 

"Well,  I  see  you've  all  brought  your  mothers-in-law  with  you. 
[Laughter.]  That's  right,  every  man  should  bring  his  mother-in-law 
to  a  humorous  lecture;  it's  the  only  way  you  can  get  even  with  her." 
[Laughter.] 

There  is  a  species  of  deformed  logic  where  the  effect  follows  the 
cause  suddenly,  without  any  logical  reasoning.  In  the  following  case 
the  boy's  funeral  takes  place  before  his  death  is  announced: 

'  Tis  only  an  infant  pippin, 

Growing  on  a  limb  ; 
'Tis  only  a  typical  small  boy, 

Who  devours  it  with  a  vim. 

'Tis  only  a  doctor's  carriage, 

Which  stopped  before  the  door  ; 
But  why  go  into  details — 

The  services  begin  at  four.     [Laughter.] 


204  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"Now  where  else  do  you  find  deformed  logic  ?  The  paradox  is  de- 
formed logic.  The  paradox  is  a  case  where  a  sentence  deforms  its 
own  thought.  The  thought  is  deformed.  With  the  anti-climax,  the 
sentence,  the  framework  around  the  thought,  is  deformed,  but  with  the 
paradox  the  thought  itself  is  deformed.  A  very  good  instance  of  the 
paradox — deformed  logic — happened  over  in  Omaha  a  few  years  ago. 
William  M.  Evarts,  our  ex-secretary  of  State,  was  over  there,  and  was 
asked  to  deliver  a  speech — a  dinner  speech.  In  this  speech  Mr.  Evarts 
complimented  the  West,  in  the  following  paradox:  , 

"  I  like  the  West1— I  like  her  self-made  men — and  the  more  I  travel 
west,  the  more  I  meet  with  her  public  men,  the  more  I  am  satisfied  of 
the  truthfulness  of  the  Bible  statement,  that  the  "  wise  man  came  from 
the  east!"  [Loud  laughter.] 

Another  case  of  the  paradox,  was  when  the  man  was  trying  on  a  new 
pair  of  boots.  He  pulled  away — pulled  away — pulled  the  straps  off,  and 
his  friend  said  to  him,  "  Why,  George,  you'll  never  get  those  boots  on  till 
you've  worn  'em  a  spell!"  [Laughter.] 

Again:  A  judge  in  Dublin  asked  an  Irish  policeman,  "When  did 
you  last  see  your  sister  ?" 

"The  last  time  I  saw  her,  my  lord,  was  about  eight  months  ago, 
when  she  called  at  my  house,  and  I  was  out."  [Laughter.] 

"Then  you  did  not  see  her  on  that  occasion?" 

"No,  my  lord;  I  wasn't  there."     [Laughter.] 

Again:  At  a  crowded  concert  to  hear  Patti  the  other  night,  a 
young  lady  was  looking  for  a  seat. 

"  It  is  a  seat  you  want,  Miss?"  asked  the  Irish  usher. 

"  Yes,  a  seat,  please." 

"  Indade,  Miss,"  said  Pat,  "I  should  be  glad  to  give  you  a  sate,  but 
the  empty  ones  are  all  full."  [Laughter.] 

Again:  An  Irishman  describing  the  trading  powers  of  the  genuine 
Yankee,  said  : 

"Bedad,  if  he  was  cast  away  on  a  desolate  island,  he'd  get  up  the  next 
mornin'  and  go  round  selling  maps  to  the  inhabitants."  [Laughter.] 

Again:  An  Irishman  boasted  that  he  had  often  skated  sixty  miles  a 
day. 

"  Sixty  miles!"  exclaimed  an  auditor,  "  that  is  a  great  distance  ;  it 
must  have  been  accomplished  when  the  days  were  the  longest." 

"To  be  sure  it  was ;  I  admit  that,"  said  the  ingenious  Hibernian, 
"  but  whoile  ye're  standin',  sit  down,  an'  oi'll  tell  ye  all  about  it." 

Again:  An  Irish  lover  said,  "It  is  a  great  comfort  to  be  alone, 
especially  when  yer  swateheart  is  wid  ye."  [Laughter.] 


WOULD  YOU  TAKE  ANYTHING,  BRIDGET? 


See  page  205. 


ELI  PERKINS.  205 

Again:  You  all  remember  the  triumphant  appeal  of  an  Irishman,  a 
lover  of  antiquity,  who,  in  arguing  the  superiority  of  old  architecture 
over  the  new,  said: 

"  Where  will  you  find  any  modern  building  that  has  lasted  so  long  as 
the  ancient?" 

Again:  An  Irishman  got  out  of  his  carriage  at  a  railway  station  for 
refreshments,  but  the  bell  rang  and  the  train  left  before  he  had  finished 
his  repast. 

"Hould  on!"  cried  Pat,  as  he  ran  like  a  mad  man  after  the  car,  "hould 
on,  ye  murthen  ould  stame  injin — ye've  got  a  passenger  on  board  that's 
left  behind."  [Laughter.] 

Again :  My  wife's  cook  was  sick.  She  was  sure  she  was  going  to  die. 
It  was  the  colic. 

"  Would  you  take  any  thing,  Bridget?"  asked  my  wife,  pouring  out. 
some  bitter  cordial. 

"  Indade,"  said  Bridget,  "  I  would  take  any  thing  to  make  me  well, 
if  I  knew  it  would  kill  me."  [Laughter.] 

Again:  "A  man  who'd  maliciously  set  fire  to  a  barn,"  said  Elder 
Podson,  "  and  burn  up  a  stable  full  of  horses  and  cows,  ought  to  be 
kicked  to  death  by  a  jackass,  and  I'd  like  to  be  the  one  to  do  it." 
[Laughter.] 

Again:  Two  deacons  once  disputing  about  a  proposed  new  grave 
yard,  one  remarked,  "  I'll  never  be  buried  in  that  ground  as  long  as  I 
live!"  "What  an  obstinate  man! "  sajd  the  other.  "If  my  life  is  spared 
I  will."  [Laughter.] 

Said  Congressman  Ben  Eggleston,  of  Ohio,  to  Sam  Cox,  of  New 
York,  who  was  trying  to  tell  him  something  about  hogs:  "You  can't 
tell  me  any  thing  about  hogs.  I  know  more  about  hogs  than  you  ever 
dreamt  of.  I  was  brought  up  in  Cincinnati  right  among  'em."  [Laugh- 
ter in  Louisville,  but  tears  in  Cincinnati.] 

Another  instance  of  deformed  logic,  or  the  paradox,  was  the  case  of 
the  two  farmers  who  were  talking  about  the  sun  and  the  moon.  One 
was  trying  to  prove  that  the  moon  was  of  more  account  than  the  sun. 

"How  do  you  make  that  out?"  asked  his  friend. 

"Why,"  said  he,  "the  moon  shines  at  night  when  it's  dark,  and 
the  sun  shines  in  the  daytime  when  it's  light  enough  without  it." 
[Laughter.] 

There  is  one  other  deformity  that  I  will  speak  of,  and  that  is 
deformed  truth,  [laughter]  hyperbole,  extravagant  statement,  or,  in 
plain  English,  lying.  [Laughter.] 


206  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

,  Now,  I  don't  say  that  to  be  witty,  you  must  always  be  telling  lies. 
If  that  were  the  case,  the  editors  would  be  the  funniest  men  in  the 
world;  [laughter]  but  I  do  say  that  a  great,  big,  innocent  Baron  Mun- 
chausen  exaggeration — a  deformed  truth — is  just  as  funny  as  any  other 
deformity  and  for  the  same  philosophical  reason.  But  0,  my  friends,  it 
must  be  an  innocent  exaggeration.  It  must  be  an  exaggeration  to  make 
your  fellow-men  happy  and  to  harm  no  man — and  for  this  reason  the 
humorists — no  not  the  humorists;  and  right  here  I  am  going  to  draw  a 
line  between  wit  and  humor  that  has  never  been  drawn.  Why  not  the 
humorists?  Because  the  humorist  always  tells  the  absolute  truth.  This 
is  the  difference  between  wit  and  humor.  Humor  is  always  the  absolute 
truth,  close  to  life,  dialect  and  all,  while  wit  is  always  a  "magnification  " 
or  a  "  minification."  Humor,  I  say,  is  the  actual  incident  photographed, 
while  wit  is  simply  imagination  which  when  expressed  in  words  is 
exaggeration. 

Dickens  was  the  king  of  the  humorists,  but  those  stories  that  Dickens 
wrote,  the  story  of  "Sam  Weller/'  "Little  Nell,"  and  "Smike/'and 
"  Oliver  Twist/'  as  you  know,  were  all  absolutely  true.*  Bret  Harte's 
"Luck  of  Roaring  Camp"  is  another  charming  piece  of  humor  —  abso- 
lute truth.  But  the  wits  all  deal  in  the  imagination;  they  are  all  great 
truth  deformers,  all  great  liars!  Mark  Twain  is  a  fearful  —  liar. 
[Laughter.]  But  Mark  Twain  is  both  a  humorist  and  a  wit.  When- 
ever he  tells  the  absolute  truth,  close  to  life,  like  Dickens,  he  is  a 
humorist;  but  just  the  moment  he  lets  his  imagination  play  —  just  the 
moment  he  begins  to  exaggerate  —  stretch  it  a  little —  then  that  humor 
blossoms  into  wit. 

To  show  you  the  fine  dividing  line  between  wit  and  humor  —  the 
invisible  line  —  and  how  humor  can  gradually  creep  into  wit  through 
exaggeration,  Mark  Twain,  in  one  of  his  books,  has  a  chapter  on  building 
tunnels  out  in  Nevada.  He  goes  on  for  five  pages  with  pure  humor — 
pure  truth.  He  describes  those  miners  just  as  they  are  —  describes 
their  dialects,  describes  their  bad  grammar,  describes  the  tunnel;  but 
Mark  can't  stick  to  the  truth  very  long  before  he  begins  to  stretch  it  a 
little.  He  soon  comes  to  a  miner  who  thinks  a  good  deal  of  his  tunnel. 
They  all  tell  him  he'd  better  stop  his  tunnel  when  he  gets  it  through  the 

*The  London  Literary  TForZdsays:  Smike  is  still  living  in  Bury,  St.  Edmund's,  where  he 
keeps  a  toy  shop.  He  is  a  tall,  hatchet-faced  old  gentleman,  proud  of  his  romantic  eminence. 
Carker  was  connected,  through  his  father,  with  an  eminent  engineering  firm,  and  lived  in 
Oxford  road,  where  he  prowled  about,  a  nuisance  to  all  the  servant  girls  in  the  neighborhood. 
Carker,  Major  Bagstock,  Mrs.  Skewton,  whose  real  name  was  Campbell,  and  her  daughter, 
were  well-known  characters  in  Leamington .  Fifty  years  ago  the  Shannon  coach,  running 
between  Ipswich  and  London,  was  driven  by  a  big,  burly  old  fellow  named  Cole,  who  was  the 
veritable  elder  Weller. 


ELI  PERKINS.  207 

hill,  but  lie  says  he  "guesses  not  —  it's  his  tunnel/'  so  he  runs  his  tun- 
nel right  on  over  the  valley  into  the  next  hill.  [Loud  laughter.]  You 
who  can  picture  to  yourselves  this  hole  in  the  sky,  held  up  by  trestle 
Avork,  will  see  where  the  humor  leaves  off  and  the  wit  begins — where 
the  truth  leaves  off  and  the  exaggeration  commences.  [Applause.] 

We  see  humor  all  around  us  every  day.  Any  one  can  write  humor 
who  will  sit  down  and  write  the  honest  truth.  There  is  no  imagination 
in  humor,  while  wit  is  all  imagination — like  the  tunnel.  Humor  is 
what  has  been;  wit  is  what  might  be.  I  saw  as  good  a  piece  of  humor 
to-day  as  I  ever  saw  in  my  life.  I  wish  I  had  photographed  it.  I  would 
if  I  had  thought  that  it  could  be  so  good.  A  dear,  good  old  lady  and 
her  daughter  came  into  the  depot  at  Poughkeepsie.  She  wasn't  used  to 
traveling,  and  was  very  nervous.  Her  eyes  wandered  about  the  depot 
a  moment,  and  then  she  walked  nervously  up  to  the  station  window  and 
tremblingly  asked: 

"When  does  the  next  train  go  to  New  York?" 

"The  next  train,  madam," said  the  agent,  looking  at  his  watch, 
"  goes  to  New  York  at  exactly  3.30." 

"Will  that  be  the  first  train?"     [Laughter.]  ! 

"Yes,  madam,  the  first  train." 

"Isn't  there  any  freights?" 

"None." 

"Isn't  there  a  special?" 

"No,  no  special." 

"Now  if  there  was  a  special  would  you  know  it?"    [Laughter.] 

"Yes." 

"And  there  isn't  any — ain't  they?" 

"None." 

"  Well  I'm  awful  glad — awful  glad,"  said  the  old  lady,  "Now  Marial 
you  and  I  can  cross  the  track."  [Loud  laughter.] 

There  is  not  a  day  but  what  every  one  in  my  audience  sees  something 
funnier  than  that.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  describe  it  truthfully  to 
make  humor  of  it. 

Take  the  simple  scene  of  two  married  women  taking  leave  of  each 
other  at  the  gate  on  a  mild  evening  and  describe  it  truthfully  and  it  will 
be  humor.  To  illustrate,  two  women  shake  hands  and  kiss  each  other 
over  the  gate  and  then  commences  the  conversation: 

"Good-bye!" 

"  Good-bye.     Come  down  and  see  us  soon." 

"I  will.     Good-bye." 

"  Good-bye.     [Laughter.]     Don't  forget  to  come  soon." 


208  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  No,  I  won't.    Don't  you  forget  to  come  up." 

"  I  won't.     Be  sure  and  bring  Sarah  Jane  with  you  next  time." 

"  I  will.  I'd  have  brought  her  this  time,  but  she  wasn't  very  well. 
She  wanted  to  come  awfully." 

"  Did  she  now?  That  was  too  bad!  Be  sure  and  bring  her  next 
time."  [Laughter.] 

"I  will.     And  you  be  sure  and  bring  baby." 

' '  I  will.  I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  he's  cut  another  tooth."  [Laugh- 
ter.]. 

"  You  don't  say  so!    How  many  has  he  now?" 

"  Five.     It  makes  him  awfully  cross." 

"  I  dare  say  it  does  this  hot  weather." 

"  Well,  good-bye!    Don't  forget  to  come  down."    [Louder.] 

"No  I  won't.  Don't  you  forget  to  come  up.  Good-by!"  [Still 
louder.] 

' '  Good-bye !  "    [Screaming.  ] 

"Good-bye!"    [Yelling.] 

Now  this  is  a  very  shallow  conversation  but  the  humorist  who  can 
render  such  scenes  close  to  life  has  his  fortune  in  his  hands.  But  there 
is  a  humor  where  imagination  is  added  to  the  truth,  that  almost  leaves 
the  domain  of  humor  and  blossoms  into  wit. 

There  is  a  kind  of  half -sad  humor  where  two  earnest  people  miscon- 
strue each  other's  thoughts.  I  once  heard  a  dialogue  between  a 
sweet,  dear  old  clergyman  of  Arkansaw  and  an  illiterate  parishioner, 
which  with  a  little  of  my  own  imagination  added  illustrates  this  idea: 

"Your  children  here  all  turned  out  well,  I  reckon,"  said  the  clergy- 
man as  he  sat  down  to  dinner  with  the  parishioner  he  had  not  seen  in 
church  for  several  years. 

"Well,  yes,  all  but  Bill,  pore  feller." 

" Drunk  licker,  I  reckon,"  said  the  clergyman,  sorrowfully." 

"Oh,  no,  never  drunk  no  licker,  but  he  hain't  amounted  to  nothin*. 
Bill  was  deceived,  an'  it  ruinfc  him." 

"Love  affair?    Married  out  of  the  church  maybe?" 

"Yes,  an'  a  mighty  bad  love  affair." 

"She  deceived  him,  eh?" 

"Terribly,  terribly." 

"Ruined  his  spiritual  life  and  he  married  a  scoffer?" 

"Oh  no,  she  married  him;  married  him?  I  guess  she  did!" 
[Laughter  ] 

"  But  confidentially,  what  was  the  cause  of  your  son's  grief  and  ruin?" 

"  Well  you  see,  brother  Munson,  she  was  a  widder  an'  let  on  she  wuz 
off,  but  she  wan't.  W'y  she  wan't  able  to  get  Bill  a  decent  suit  o' 


ELI  PERKINS.  209 

clothes  the  week  airter  they  wuz  married.  Poor  Bill  has  gone  ragged 
ever  since  the  weddin'.  Poor  boy,  he's  lost  all  confidence  in  wimmen, 
Bill  has."  [Laughter.] 

To  illustrate  how  humor  can  run  into  the  imagination  and  become 
wit: 

A  young  lady  came  into  Alexander  "Weed's  drug  store,  and  asked  him 
if  it  were  possible  to  disguise  castor  oil. 

"It's  horrid  stuff  to  take,  you  know.  Ugh!"  said  the  young  lady, 
with  a  shudder. 

""Why,  certainly,"  said  Mr.  "Weed,  and  just  then,  as  another  young 
lady  was  taking  some  soda  water,  Mr.  "Weed  asked  her  if  she  wouldn't 
have  some,  too.  After  drinking  it  the  young  lady  lingered  a  moment, 
and  finally  observed  : 

"Now,  tell  me,  Mr.  Weed,  how  you  would  disguise  castor  oil?" 
"Why,  madam,  I  just  gave  you  some — " 

"My  gracious  me!"  exclaimed  the  young  lady.  "  Why,  I  wanted  it 
for  my  sister!"  [Loud  laughter.] 

This  is  wit,  because  it  ends  up  with  a  snap  of  the  imagination.     So 
I  say  wit  is  pure    Baron-Munchausen  exaggeration  or   minification. 
The  story  teller  exaggerates,  the  actor  exaggerates,  the  writer  exag- 
gerates, and  the  witty  artist  exaggerates. 

Gil  Bias,  Gulliver's  Travels,  Don  Quixote  and  the  Tale  of  a  Tub  are 
instances  of  pure  imagination,  pure  fancy.  There  is  no  special  genius 
displayed  in  reporting  a  scene  close  to  life.  Dickens  ceases  to  be  a 
humorist  when  he  lets  his  imagination  play  in  the  speech  of  Buzfuz,  and 
Mark  Twain  is  irresistibly  witty  when  he  comes  to  the  bust  of  Columbus 
and  the  tomb  of  Adam.  Herein  differs  the  Wit  from  the  Humorist. 
The  Humorist  is  a  faithful  photographer.  He  tells  just  what  he  hears 
and  sees,  while  the  Wit  lets  his  imagination  and  fancy  play.  I  believe 
the  Wit  is  as  far  beyond  the  Humorist  as  the  ideal  picture  is  beyond 
the  humdrum  portrait.  A  witty  sketch  is  as  much  beyond  a  humorous 
sketch  as  Raphael's  ideal  Sistine  Madonna  is  beyond  Rubens'  actual 
portrait  of  his  fat  wife.  One  is  ideal,  the  other  is  real.  Any  patient 
toiler  can  write  humor,  while  it  is  only  the  man  with  brain  and 
imagination  who  can  write  wit.  [Applause.] 

As  perfect  a  piece  of  humor  as  was  ever  written  is  Mark  Twain's 
description  of  Tom  Sawyer  whitewashing  the  fence.  Human  nature 
bristles  all  through  it.  The  Detroit  Free  Press  man  is  a  humorist.  All 
of  his  stories  are  based  on  the  truth.  Old  "  Bijah"  was  an  actual  char- 
acter; and  Mr.  Lewis  simply  described  his  acts  close  to  life.  Brother 
Gardner  was  once  a  real  character  and  The  Lime  Kiln  Club  existed. 
14 


210  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Mr.  Lewis  described  the  meetings  of  the  club  so  true  to  life  that  he  once 
received  a  letter  from  a  member  of  the  Indiana  State  legislature  who 
wanted  to  come  to  Detroit  and  join  the  club.  [Laughter.]  Mr.  Lewis 
always  takes  real  characters  and  makes  them  act  in  the  newspaper  just 
as  they  act  in  nature. 

How  many  times  we  have  all  seen  the  little  quarrels  of  loving  brides 
and  grooms.  Picture  to  yourselves  a  young  married  couple  fixing  up 
their  first  home: 

"How  glad  I  am,  dearie,  that  our  tastes  are  so  very  similar,"  said 
young  Mrs.  Honeylip  to  her  husband  when  they  had  returned  from  their 
bridal  tour  and  were  furnishing  the  flat  in  which  they  were  to  be  "so 
perfectly  happy." 

"  We  agree  about  every  thing,  don't  we,  darling?"  she  continued. 
""We  both  wanted  cardinal  and  gray  to  be  the  prevailing  tones  in  the 
parlor,  we  agreed  exactly  about  the  blue  room,  and  both  wanted  oak  for 
the  dining  room  and  hall.  We  like  the  same  kind  of  chairs.  Oh,  we 
agree  exactly,  don't  we,  and  how  nice  it  is.  I'd  feel  dreadful  if  we  didn't 
agree,  particularly  about  any  important  thing." 

"So  would  I,  darling,"  he  said.  "It's  lovely  to  live  in  such  perfect 
harmony.  Now,  I  guess  111  hang  this  lovely  little  water  color  your  aunt 
gave  us  right  over  this  cabinet,  shan't  I?" 

"I  don't  hardly  know,  my  dear.  Wouldn't  it  look  better  over  that 
bracket  on  the  opposite  wall?" 

"I  hardly  think  so,  love;  the  light  is  so  much  better  here." 

" Do  you  think  so,  George?  Really,  now,  I  don't  like  it  in  that 
light." 

"You  don't?  Why,  it's  just  the  light  for  it.  It's  entirely  too  dark 
for  a  water  color  on  the  other  wall." 

"I  don't  think  so  at  all.  Water  colors  don't  want  a  great  deal  of 
light." 

"They  certainly  don't  want  to  be  in  the  shade." 

"  They  certainly  don't  want  to  hang  in  a  perfect  glare  of  light." 

"  I  guess  I've  hung  pictures  before  to-day,  and " 

"Oh,  George,  how  cross  you  are!"    [Laughter.] 

"  I'm  no  crosser  than  you,  and " 

"  You  are,  too,  and  I — I — oh,  how  can  you  be  so  cruel?" 

"Pshaw,  Helen,  I  only  said 

"Oh,  I  know,  and  it  has  broken  my  heart." 

"  There,  there,  dear " 

"Oh,  it  has!  I — I — George  do  you  really  want  me  to  go  back  to 
mamma  and  papa?" 


ELI  PERKINS.  211 

"Why,  darling,  you  know 

"Be — be— cause,  boo,  hoo!  if  you  d — d — o,  boo,  hoo!  I  will.  It 
would  be  better,  boo,  hoo!  than  for  us  to  quarrel  so  over  every  thing, 
and- 

"  There,  there,  my  dear,  I " 

"Mamma  was  afraid  we  were  too  unlike  in  disposition  to  get  along 
well,  but  I — I — oh,  George  this  is  too  perfectly  dreadful!"  [Laughter.] 


Now  I  will  show  you  how  the  wit  and  humorist  do  their  work.  I'll 
lift  the  veil  right  here.  The  humorist  takes  any  ordinary  scene,  like 
the  old  lady  in  the  depot,  and  describes  it  true  to  life.  That's  all. 
Dickens  used  to  go  down  into  the  slums  of  London  and  get  hold  of  such 
quaint  characters  as  Bill  Sykes  and  Nancy.  Then  he  used  to  watch 
them,  hear  every  word  they  uttered — hear  their  bad  grammar  and 
dialect — see  every  act  they  performed.  Then  he  used  to  come  into  his 
room,  sit  down  and  write  a  photograph  of  what  he  saw  and  heard.  And 
that  was  humor — truth  in  letter  and  in  spirit. 

The  humorist  is  truer  than  the  historian.  [Sensation]  The  historian 
is  only  true  in  spirit,  while  the  humorist  is  true  in  spirit  and  in  letter. 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  when  he  wrote  true  humor  was  truer  than  Macaulay. 
[Sensation.]  Take  King  James  of  Scotland.  He  had  never  stepped 
upon  English  soil.  He  could  not  speak  the  English  language.  He 
spoke  a  sweet  Scotch  dialect.  But  when  Macaulay  makes  King  James 
speak,  he  puts  in  his  mouth  the  pure  English  of  Addison  and  Dr. 
Johnson.  He  deceives  us  to  add  dignity  to  his  history.  [Applause.] 
Not  so  with  Sir  Walter  Scott.  When  he  describes  King  James  in  Ivan- 
hoe  he  puts  nature's  dialect  in  his  mouth — that  sweet  Scotch  dialect — 
and  Sir  Walter  Scott  is  truer  than  Macaulay.  [Applause.] 

Humor  is  what  has  been;  wit  is  what  might  be.  Humor  is  the  abso- 
lute truth,  dialect  and  all,  and  wit  is  that  same  truth  exaggerated  by  the 
imagination  —  carried  farther  than  nature,  like  Mark  Twain's  tunnel. 
[Applause.] 

The  most  humorous  thing  "  The  Danbury  News  Man  "  ever  wrote, 
was  that  account  of  putting  up  a  stovepipe,  and  that  actually  occurred. 
The  Danbury  News  Man  and  his  wife  were  going  to  church  one  day, 
and  the  stovepipe  fell  down.  He  called  his  wife  back  to  help  him  put 
it  up;  but  she  was  a  very  religious  woman,  and  went  on  to  church  and 
left  him  to  put  up  that  stovepipe  alone.  He  put  up  that  stovepipe. 
[Laughter.]  That  stovepipe  did  every  thing  that  any  stovepipe  could 
do.  [Laughter.]  It  didn't  go  out  of  the  room.  [Laughter.]  I  had  a 


212  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

stovepipe  once  that  got  out  the  back  door,  went  clear  around  the  block 
twice,  and  came  back  and  got  onto  the  wrong  stove.  [Loud  laughter.] 
Well,  after  he  got  the  stovepipe  put  up,  he  sat  down  and  wrote  a  faith- 
ful account  of  it,  and  you  enjoy  reading  it.  You  say  "  that  is  so  true!  '* 
That  man  put  up  a  stovepipe — he's  been  there!  [Laughter]. 

Now,  if  the  writer  had  wanted  to  add  wit  to  his  humor,  he  would 
only  have  had  to  add  imagination.  In  his  mind's  eye  he  could  have  put 
two  joints  on  the  stovepipe,  and  the  soot  could  have  poured  right  out  of 
one  joint  down  his  shirt  collar,  and  he  could  have  shaken  it  out  of  the 
bottom  of  his  trousers;  [Laughter]  and  the  other  joint  could  have 
slipped  right  over  his  head  and  taken  off  one  of  his  ears.  [Laughter.] 
But  that  would  have  been  a  lie,  for  the  stovepipe  was  No.  6,  and  his 
head  was  No.  7.  [Laughter.] 

The  most  humorous  creations  of  the  Danbury  News  man  are  his 
description  of  cording  the  bedstead  and  Mrs.  Munson  ' '  shooing  "  the 
hen.  We  can  see  Mrs.  Munson  now.  Her  husband,  the  old  farmer,  had 
been  at  work  all  the  morning  with  two  hired  men  and  three  dogs  trying 
to  drive  the  hens  into  the  coop.  Mrs.  Munson  looked  up  from  her 
churning,  saw  the  situation  and  screamed: 

"John!  Ill  ' shoo'  those  hens!" 

Then  she  goes  out  —  gets  her  eyes  on  the  hens  —  holds  up  her  dress 

from  both  sides  —  then  drops  her  whole  body  as  she  says  "Sh !  " 

[Laughter.]  That  settles  it!  [Loud  laughter.] 


We  have  shown  what  wit  and  humor  are,  and  now  we  come  to  satire. 
And  what  is  satire? 

Satire  is  a  species  of  wit.  Satire  is  to  exaggerate  an  error  and  make 
it  odious.  Nasby  was  a  satirist.  He  always  called  himself  a  satirist — 
not  a  humorist.  He  never  tried  to  produce  laughter.  His  aim  was  to 
convince  people  of  error,  by  exaggerating  that  error  so  that  they  could 
see  it.  His  mission  was  to  exaggerate  error,  or  overstate  it  and  make 
it  hideous.  So  Nasby  never  told  a  truth  in  his  life — in  the  newspapers. 
Of  course  he  has  told  private  truths  at  home — to  his  wife.  [Laughter.] 
Even  the  date  of  every  letter  Nasby  ever  wrote  was  an  exaggeration. 
There  is  no  such  place  as  the  "  Confederate  Cross-Roads"  in  Kentucky, 
no  "Deacon  Pogram" —  all  an  exaggeration!  The  mission  of  the 
satirist,  I  say,  is  to  exaggerate  an  error.  Why,  you  can  kill  more  error 
with  exaggeration  in  a  week  than  you  can  kill  with  truth  in  a  thousand 
years. 

How  long  had  they  been  trying  to  break  up  that  awful  error  of 
knight-errantry  in  Spain?  They  couldn't  do  it.  They  flung  arguments 


ELI  PERKINS.  213 

at  it;  the  arguments  fell  to  the  ground,  and  the  error  of  knight-errantry 
went  on.  One  day  Cervantes,  that  great  Spanish  satirist,  wrote  Don 
Quixote — a  pure  exaggeration — no  Don  Quixote  ever  existed,  no  Sancho 
Panza.  It  was  knight-errantry  exaggerated,  and  the  people  saw  the 
crime  and  ground  it  under  their  feet.  Juvenal  changed  the  political 
history  of  Rome  with  satire,  as  Thackeray  ran  snobbery  out  of  England 
by  exaggerating  it  in  satire. 

Nasby  created  red-nosed  Deacon  Pogram,  placed  him  in  the  Cross- 
Road,  Bourbon  county,  saloon,  filled  him  with  rum,  riot  and  rebellion, 
made  him  abuse  the  "nigger"  and  the  Republican  party,  and  defend 
slavery.  He  made  the  secessionist  odious,  and  did  more  with  his  satire 
to  kill  slavery  and  rebellion  than  Wendell  Phillips  did  with  his  denunci- 
ation. [Applause.] 

Satire  is  used  all  through  the  Bible  to  kill  error.  Job  used  it  — 
Elijah  and  our  Savior — what  cutting  satire  did  our  Savior  use  to  call 
the  attention  of  the  Jews  to  their  crimes.  Don't  you  remember,  when 
the  Jews  were  washing  their  hands  before  and  after  every  meal  — little 
one-cent  observances,  while  great  crimes  went  creeping  into  Judea — 
Christ  wanted  to  call  their  attention  to  their  crimes.  He  used  satire. 
With  what  dreadful  satire  He  exclaimed: 

"  Ye  are  blind  leaders  of  the  blind.  Ye  strain  at  a  gnat  and  swallow 
a  camel!" 

Our  Savior  didn't  mean  to  say  these  Jews  could  literally  swallow  a 
camel —  He  knew  they'd  try —  [Laughter  interrupted  this  sentence.] 

If  I  want  to  satirize  the  hunibuggery  of  our  jury  system,  I  exaggerate 
a  juryman's  ignorance,  and  then  the  people  see  it.  For  example:  A 
Chicago  lawyer  was  visiting  New  York  for  the  first  time.  Meeting  a 
man  on  the  crowded  street,  he  said: 

"Here,  my  friend,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  something  about  this  city." 

"  I  don't  know  any  thing  about  it,"  said  the  hurrying  business  man, 
with  a  far-away  look. 

"What  street  is  this?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  the  busy  man,  with  his  mind  occupied,  and 
staring  at  vacancy. 

"What  city  is  it?" 

"  Can't  tell;  I  am  busy." 

"  Is  it  London  or  New  York?" 

"  Don't  know  any  thing  about  it." 

"You  don't?" 

"No." 

"  Well,  by  Heavens,  sir,  you  are  the  very  man  I'm  looking  for.  I've 
been  looking  for  you  for  years." 


214  KINGS  OF  TUB  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  What  do  yon  want  me  for?" 

"  I  want  you  to  sit  on  a  jury'in  Chicago."     [Loud  laughter.] 

Satire  intensifies  an  absurdity.  Now  if  I  were  going  to  expose  the 
error  of  evolution,  which  is  a  direct  assault  upon  the  Bible,  I  would  not 
deny  evolution,  I  would  satirize  it. 

I  would  say  with  Darwin  and  Huxley,  that  before  we  can  adopt  evo- 
lution and  modern  reason  we  must  do  away  with  the  Bible.  Yes,  destroy 
the  old  Bible  ! 

The  old  theory  of  creation  is  all  wrong.  Nothing  was  created. 
Every  thing  grew.  In  the  old  Bible  we  read:  "  In  the  beginning  God 
created  heaven  and  earth." 

"Now  this  is  all  wrong,"  says  Darwin  and  I.  "  Our  new  Bible  is  to 
commence  like  this: 

GENESIS.     CHAP.  I. 

(1)  There  never  was  a  beginning.     The  Eternal,  without  us  that 
maketh  for  righteousness,  took  no  notice  whatever  of  any  thing. 

(2)  And  Cosmos  was  homogeneous  and  undifferentiated  and  some- 
how or  another  evolution  began,  and  molecules  appeared.    [Laughter.] 

(3)  And  molecule  evolved  protoplasm,  and  rhythmic  thrills  arose  and 
then  there  was  light. 

(4)  And  a  spirit  of  energy  was  developed  and  formed  the  plastic 
cell,  whence  arose  the  primordial  germ. 

(5)  And    the  primordial   germ  became  protogene,  and  protogene 
somehow  shaped  eocene — then  was  the  dawn  of  life.     [Laughter.] 

(6)  And  the  herb  yielding  seed,  and  the  fruit-tree  yielding   fruit 
after  its  own  kind,  whose  seed  is  in  itself,  developed  according  to  its 
own  fancy.     And  the  Eternal,  without  us  that  maketh  for  righteous- 
ness, neither  knew  nor  cared  any  thing  about  it.     [Laughter.] 

(7)  The  cattle  after  his  kind,  the  beast  of  the  earth  after  his  kind, 
and  every  creeping  thing  became  evolved  by  heterogeneous  segregation 
and  concomitant  dissipation  of  motion. 

(8)  So  that  by  survival  of  the  fittest  there  evolved  the  simiads  from 
the  jelly  fish,  and  the  simiads  differentiated  themselves  into  the  anthro- 
pomorphic primordial  types. 

(9)  And  in   due  time  one  lost  his  tail.     This  was  Adam  and  he 
became  a  man.     [Laughter.]     And  behold  he  was  the  most  cunning  of 
all  animals;   and  lo!    the  fast  men  killed  the  slow  men,  and  it  was 
ordained  to  be  in  every  age  that  the  fittest  should  survive! 

(10)  And  in  process  of  time,  Moses  and  Christ  died,  and  by  natural 
selection  and  survival  of  the  fittest,  Matthew  Arnold,  Herbert  Spencer, 
and  Charles  Darwin  appeared,  and  behold  it  was  very  good.  [Applause.] 


ELI  PERKINS.  215 

Now  we  come  to  the  hardest  of  all  things  to  explain,  and  that  is  ridicule 
— and  what  is  ridicule? 

Eidicule  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  truth  that  wit  does  to  humor — it 
is  the  truth  exaggerated.  Satire  is  to  exaggerate  an  error  till  you  see  it 
and  stamp  it  out ;  while  ridicule  is  to  exaggerate  a  truth,  deform  it  and 
you  laugh  it  out.  "With  satire  the  error  goes  with  a  kick,  while  with  rid- 
icule the  truth  goes  with  a  laugh.  [Applause.]  Ridicule  is  an  awful 
weapon,  because  with  it  you  can  harm  the  truth.  In  fact  the  only  way 
to  harm  truth  is  to  ridicule  it.  Deny  truth?  That  don't  hurt  truth  any. 
You  will  simply  impeach  your  own  veracity — kill  yourself.  But  you  can 
ridicule  truth  and,  as  the  lawyer's  say,  "laugh  it  out  of  court."  This  is  the 
reason  why  lawyers  always  use  ridicule — in  all  law  cases  only  one  side  is 
right ;  the  other  must  be  wrong;  and  the  man  who  is  on  the  wrong  side, 
if  he  is  a  good  lawyer,  will  not  say  a  word  about  his  side,  but  he  will  walk 
over  to  the  right  side,  exaggerate  it  and  "laugh  it  out  of  court." 

To  show  you  how  lawyers  ridicule  the  truth,  to  kill  it:  I  attended  a 
murder  case,  a  while  ago  in  Akron,  Ohio.  It  was  a  homicide  case — a 
case  where  a  man  had  accidentally  killed  his  friend.  This  lawyer  wanted 
to  win  the  sympathy  of  the  jury,  and  he  told  the  jury,  in  a  very  pathetic 
and  truthful  manner,  how  bad  his  client  felt. 

"0!  My  client  felt  so  bad,"  he  began  in  weeping  tones — "felt  so 
bad  when  he  killed  his  friend;  the  tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks;  he 
knelt  down  by  that  fallen  form ! " 

Well,  the  jury  knew  that  his  touching  pathos  was  true,  and  so  did 
the  other  lawyer.  Still  he  could  not  let  it  stand  because  it  had  touched 
the  jury.  What  did  he  do?  Why,  he  took  that  true  pathos  right  over 
on  the  other  side,  exaggerated  it,  and  turned  it  into  ridicule,  and 
laughed  it  out  of  court. 

"  Yes/'  he  said  with  exaggerated  pathos,  "  he  did  feel  bad  when  he 
killed  his  friend.  The  tears  did  roll  down  his  cheeks.  He  took  off  one 
boot,  and  emptied  it  [laughter];  then  he  cried  some  more;  then  he 
emptied  his  other  boot  [laughter];  then  he  tied  his  handkerchief  around 
his  trousers — cried  'em  full,  boo — hoo!"  [Laughter.] 

In  a  moment  he  had  that  jury  laughing  at  exaggerated  truth  and 
pathos. 

The  truth  was  gone! 

A  good  lawyer  never  denies  a  true  statement  before  the  jury;  it  is 
much  easier  to  exaggerate  that  statement,  and  make  the  jury  "laugh  it 
out  of  court." 

Ingersoll  in  his  discussions  with  Talmage,  never  denied  a  true  state- 
ment of  Talmage.  He  exaggerated  them,  and  made  them  ridiculous. 


216  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

For  instance,  Talmage  made  a  statement  about  Jonah.  He  said,  "Per- 
haps the  whale  didn't  swallow  Jonah.  Perhaps  the  whale  simply  took 
Jonah  in  his  mouth,  carried  him  round  a  day  or  two,  and  then  vomited 
him  up."  That  was  enough  for  Bob.  He  didn't  deny  it.  He  went 
across  the  platform,  and  exaggerated  Talmage's  statement. 

"  Yes/'  said  Ingersoll.  "I  can  see  Jonah  in  the  whale's  mouth — he 
ties  himself  up  to  a  tooth  and  when  the  whale  chews,  Jonah,  he  crouches 
down  —  crouches  down,  [laughter,  while  Bob  crouches  down,  keeping 
time  with  the  whale's  jaw,]  and,  by-and-by,  when  the  whale  isn't  look- 
ing, Jonah,  he  jumps  over  into  a  hollow  tooth,  builds  a  fire,  reaches  out 
and  catches  a  few  fish  and  fries  'em;  peek-a-boo!"  [Great  laughter.] 
And  so  he  laughs  Talmage's  statement  out  of  court;  but  has  he  denied 
it?  Not  at  all. 

Now,  again,  when  Ingersoll  wants  to  ridicule  the  church,  he  doesn't 
take  the  church  of  to-day.  He  couldn't  ridicule  that.  So  what  does  he 
do?  "Why  he  goes  back  four  hundred  years  for  that  church.  He  goes 
back  to  the  barbarous  inquisition,  when  every  man  was  a  savage,  with  a 
spear  in  one  hand  and  a  hatchet  in  the  other,  trying  to  kill  his  fellow- 
man.  [Applause.]  He  goes  back  to  bloody  Spain,  where  the  State 
had  seized  the  church,  and  they  were  burning  Protestants  at  the  stake, 
pulling  their  arms  out  on  the  rack,  or  boring  their  eyes  out  with 
augurs;  or  he  goes  to  England  in  the  time  of  Bloody  Mary,  when  the 
State  had  seized  the  church,  and  the  church  was  not  [applause]  where 
they  were  toasting  John  Huss,  and  Cranmer  and  Lattimer  in  the  fires 
of  the  Inquisition — where  they  were  burning  the  saints'  eyes  out — I  say 
he  finds  the  church  in  the  hands  of  Bloody  Mary,  and  he  takes  that  church 
and  puts  it  down  before  our  young  men  of  to-day.  Then  he  sets  Deacon 
Thompson  to  boring  Deacon  Monson's  eyes  out  with  an  augur,  and  then 
asks  our  young  if  they  want  to  belong  to  any  such  wicked  old  church  as 
that?  [Laughter.] 

Now,  that  isn't  the  church  they  are  asked  to  belong  to.    [Applause.] 

Kidicule  is  to  harm  truth,  not  error.  Our  clergymen  have  no  occa- 
sion to  use  ridicule,  for  the  business  of  the  clergyman  is  not  to  harm 
truth  but  to  harm  error.  So  he  can  use  satire  all  day  long,  because 
our  Savior  used  it.  Our  Savior  never  used  ridicule.  [Applause.] 

In  fact,  when  any  man  uses  ridicule  in  speech  or  editorial  he  is  trying 
to  stab  the  truth,  for  that  is  what  the  weapon  is  for. 

Still,  our  clergymen  should  understand  ridicule,  so  as  not  to  deny  it. 
There  is  your  trouble.  You  have  been  denying  ridicule  all  these  days, 
when  you  should  have  explained  it.  If  you  want  to  answer  Ingersoll, 
don't  deny  his  ridicule,  but  explain  it. 


ELI  PERKINS.  217 

I  heard  Ingersoll  deliver  his  great  lecture  on  the  "Mistakes  of 
Moses,"  in  Indianapolis.  Splendid  speech!  I  wouldn't  take  one  plume 
from  the  hat  of  that  eloquent  infidel !  But  what  did  that  speech  con- 
sist of  ?  Like  all  of  his  speeches,  it  was  made  up  of  nine  magnificent 
truths  about  human  liberty,  and  human  love,  and  wife's  love,  and  then 
he  took  one  little  religious  truth,  multiplied  it  by  live,  turned  it  into 
ridicule  and  "laughed  it  out  of  court."  And  the  result?  Why,  the 
next  day,  as  usual,  all  our  clergymen  came  out  and  denied  the  whole 
lecture — denied  ridicule!  That  is  the  mistake  our  clergymen  have  been 
making  for  ten  years.  I  meet  young  men  every  day  trembling  in  tl.e 
balance,  because  you  clergymen  have  denied  too  much,  and  not  explained 
at  all.  You  have  not  met  the  infidel  logically.  If  I  had  followed  the 
great  agnostic,  I  should  have  said: 

"  Why,  Ingersoll,  you  have  just  found  out  that  Moses  and  the  Jews, 
the  anti-Christ,  made  mistakes!  We  Christians  knew  that  Moses  made 
mistakes  two  thousand  years  ago.  It  is  written  there  in  the  Bible  as 
plain  as  day  how  Moses  murdered  an  Egyptian,  hid  him  in  the  sand  and 
lied  about  it.  Why,  Bob,  if  Moses  and  the  Jews  hadn't  made  mistakes 
there  wouldn't  have  been  any  New  Testament,  there  wouldn't  have  been 
any  Christianity,  there  wouldn't  have  been  any  need  of  Christ.  Christ 
came  to  correct  the  mistakes  of  Moses.  [Applause.]  Why,  Bob,  where 
did  you  get  your  news?  You  must  have  just  got  your  Jerusalem 
Herald  —  delayed  in  a  storm!"  [Laughter.] 

Then  I  would  have  said  to  those  Ingersollized  Christians,  "Why,  my 
dear,  trembling  brothers  and  sisters,  we  haven't  got  to  defend  Moses, 
the  Jew,  because  he  made  mistakes,  because  he  murdered  and  lied; 
[sensation]  we  Christians  haven't  got  to  defend  the  faltering  Noah  when 
he  got  drunk;  we  Christians  haven*t  got  to  defend  David  when  he  became 
a  Nero  and  slaved  and  debauched  his  people;  and  we  Christians  haven't 
got  to  defend  that  miserable  king  of  the  Jews,  Solomon,  when  he  had  four 
hundred  more  wives  than  Brigham  Young.  [Sensation.]  But  all  we 
Christians  have  got  to  do,  and  it  is  so  easy,  is  to  stand  by  the  Bible 
account — that  the  Bible  is  true,  just  as  it  is  written  in  black  and  white! 
They  did  make  mistakes,  those  Jews  did,  and  they  made  such  grievous 
mistakes  that  God  threw  the  whole  Jewish  dispensation  overboard  as  a 
failure  —  God  did  nothing  in  vain — and  started  a  new  dispensation,  the 
Christian  dispensation,  and  sent  His  only  beloved  Son,  Christ,  to  sit  on 
the  throne  at  the  head  of  it.  [Applause.]  What!  you  defending  the 
unbelieving  Jew  —  the  anti- Christ?  God  never  defended  them.  They 
did  just  the  best  they  could,  those  poor  Jews  did,  without  Christ. 
[Applause.]  There  could  be  no  perfection  without  Christ.  [Applause.] 


218  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Now,  Christians,  wait  till  some  one  shall  assault  Christianity,  not 
Judaism;  wait  till  some  one  shall  assault  Christ,  not  Moses.  But  no  one 
has  assaulted  Christ.  Renan?  Never.  Ingersoll?  Never.  When  they 
come  to  Christ  they  stand  with  heads  uncovered.  [Loud  applause.] 

"  I  would  say  more  on  this  theological  subject — I  would  kill  the 
devil — I  hate  him,  and  I  would  kill  him,  but  I  see  there  are  several 
clergymen  present  and  they — have — their  —  families — to — support!" 
[Loud  laughter  drowned  the  speaker's  voice.] 

The  fact  is,  a  great  many  people  who  never  think  of  reading  the 
Scriptures,  but  who  keep  a  dusty  Bible  to  press  flowers  in  and  as  a 
receptacle  for  receipts  for  making  biscuits,  often  cavil  about  some  the- 
ology that  they  hear  about  in  the  corner  grocery.  A  grocery  theologian 
said  to  me  one  day,  "You  don't  believe  in  Noah  and  the  flood,  do  you?" 
"Yes,"  I  said,  "and  in  the  Johnstown  flood  too,  when  18,000  were  eat- 
ing and  drinking  and  'that  flood  came  and  took  them  off.'  Christ  said 
that  '  when  He  should  come  again  it  would  be  as  in  the  days  of  Noah."; 

"  And  the  whale  story,  too.     Do  you  believe  that?" 

"  Now  there  is  your  corner  grocery  theology  again.  The  Bible  don't 
say  any  thing  about  a  whale.  It  says,  '  And  God  prepared  a  great  fish,' 
and  if  God  could  make  the  universe — if  He  could  say,  '  let  there  be 
light,'  He  could  say,  '  let  there  be  a  big  fish.'  The  world  is  a  miracle, 
the  violet  is  a  miracle,  man  is  a  miracle,  the  fish  is  a  miracle." 

"And  that  story  of  Balaam.  Do  you  believe  that?"  says  the  gro- 
cery theologian.  "'Why,  scientists  have  examined  the  mouth  of  an  ass, 
and  they  say  it  is  physically  impossible  for  him  to  speak." 

To  this  I  answer  with  all  the  sarcasm  of  Moody:  "If  you  will 
make  an  ass  I  will  make  him  speak! "  It's  all  a  miracle,  life,  joy,  laugh- 
ter, tears  and  death,  and  he  who  can  create  man  can  resurrect  his  soul 
and  waft  it  away  to  eternal  joy!  [Loud  applause.] 

************ 

What  is  pathos? 

Pathos  is  the  absolute  truth  about  a  solemn  subject;  but  when  pathos 
is  rendered  true  to  nature,  it  is  just  as  entertaining  as  humor.  How 
many  times  you  have  seen  a  sentimental  young  lady  reading  a  sorrowful 
love  story.  She  would  read  and  cry,  read  and  cry — the  villain  still  pur- 
sued her!  [Loud  laughter.]  She  enjoyed  that  pathos.  If  she  hadn't 
she  would  have  thrown  that  book  away. 

I  saw  an  old  slave  woman  die  on  a  Louisiana  plantation  during  the 
war.  The  scene  was  humorous  and  pathetic: 

"  Doctor,  is  I  got  to  go?"  asked  the  venerable  Christian,  her  eyes 
filled  with  tears  of  joy. 

"  Aunt  'Liza,  there  is  no  hope  for  you." 


ELI  PERKINS.  219 

"  Bress  the  Great  Master  for  His  goodness.     Ise  ready." 

The  doctor  gave  a  few  directions  to  those  colored  women  who  sat 
around  'Liza's  bed,  and  started  to  leave,  when  he  was  recalled  by  the  old 
woman,  who  was  drifting  out  with  the  tide: 

"  Marse  John,  stay  wid  me  till  it's  ober.  I  wants  to  talk  ob  de  old 
times.  I  knowed  you  when  a  boy,  long  'fore  you  went  and  been  a  doc- 
tor. I  called  you  Marse  John  den;  I  call  you  de  same  now.  Take  yo* 
ole  mammy's  hand,  honey,  and  hold  it.  Ise  lived  a  long,  long  time. 
Ole  marster  and  ole  missus  hab  gone  before,  and  de  chillun  from  de  old 
place  is  scattered  ober  de  world.  I'd  like  to  see  'em  'fore  I  starts  on  de 
journey  to-night.  [Sensation.]  My  ole  man's  gone,  and  all  de  chillun 
I  nussed  at  dis  breast  has  gone  too.  Dey's  waitin'  for  dere  mudder  on 
de  golden  shore.  I  bress  de  Lord,  Marse  John,  for  takin'  me  to  meet 
'em  dar.  Ise  fought  de  good  fight,  and  Ise  not  afraid  to  meet  de  Sa^ 
vior.  No  mo'  wo'k  for  poor,  ole  mammy,  no  mo'  trials  and  tribulations 
— hold  my  hand  tighter,  Marse  John — f adder,  mudder — marster — mis- 
sus— chillun — Ise  gwiue  home.  [Tears  in  the  audience.] 

The  soul,  while  pluming  its  wings  for  its  flight  to  the  Great  Beyond, 
rested  on  the  dusky  face  of  the  sleeper,  and  the  watchers,  with  bowed 
heads,  wept  silently.  She  was  dead!  [Sensation.] 

Is  exaggeration  wit? 

You  have  no  idea  how  much  of  our  innocent  laughter  is  caused  by 
innocent  exaggeration.  We  see  it  all  around  us.  If  a  person  imagines 
a  thing  and  expresses  it,  that  is  exaggeration.  You  can't  imagine  a 
thing  that  is.  You  must  imagine  something  that  is  not.  It  is  only  the 
brightest  people  who  have  vivid  imaginations,  and  it  is  only  the  bright- 
est people  who  have  wit. 

The  charm  of  the  Poet  is  caused  by  his  imagination  or  exaggeration. 
When  the  divine  Psalmist  says  "the  morning  stars  sang  together,"  it  is 
imagination.  Don't  hold  the  Psalmist  to  strict  account.  Joaquin  Miller 
in  a  late  poem  speaks  of  the  "clinking  stars." 

"Why,  Joaquin,"  I  said,  when  I  met  him,  "did  you  ever  hear  the 
stars  clink?"  "No,"  he  said  laughing,  "but  the  old  poetical  exaggera- 
tion about  the  stars  singing  got  to  be  a  '  chestnut '  and  I  thought  I'd 
make  my  stars  clink "  [Laughter.] 

Dear  old  Longfellow  was  a  sweet  Christian,  and  still  he  tunes  his  liar 
[laughter]  and  sings : 

"  The  sun  kissed  the  dew  drops  and  they  were  pearls." 

This  is  the  sweet  wit  of  the  imagination  —  from  Apollo's  lyre. 
[Laughter.  ] 

Our  clergymen  are  about  the  brightest  wits  we  have,  because  they 
have  the  brightest  imaginations.  I  met  a  clergyman  on  the  cars  to-day. 


220  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

I'm  sorry  I  talked  to  him,  for  I  found  afterward,  from  the  brakeman, 
that  he  used  to  be  a  chaplain  in  the  army  —  and  sometimes  these  old 
chaplains  are  loaded  [laughter] — and  I  think  he  had  several  charges 
in  him  that  hadn't  been  shot  off  sinc£  Gettysburg.  [Laughter.]  "Well, 
we  were  talking  about  cannons,  and  he  asked  me  if  I  had  seen  the  can- 
non they  had  just  cast  for  "West  Point. 

I  told  him  I  hadn't.     " How  does  it  work?  " 

"Well,  it  carries  the  biggest  ball — " 

"How  does  it  work?" 

"  They  shot  that  cannon  off  the  other  day,  but  the  ball  was  so  large 
that  it  stood  right  still,  and  the  cannon  —  went  twelve  miles!" 
[Laughter.] 

I  found  out  afterward  that  he  was  really  a  clergyman  —  in  good 
standing — in  Chicago.  [Laughter  drowned  the  sentence.] 

Now,  this  was  from  an  innocent  clergyman.  [Laughter.]  But 
exaggeration  is  just  as  likely  to  come  from  a  simple  farmer.  One  day, 
out  in  Sioux  county,  the  extreme  northwestern  county  of  Nebraska,  I 
met  the  professional  homesteader.  He  stood  by  a  prairie  schooner,  out 
of  which  came  a  stove-pipe.  Behind  was  a  cow  and  calf  and  two  dogs. 

"  Where  is  your  home?"  I  asked. 

"  H'nt  got  no  house,"  he  said,  as  he  kicked  one  of  the  dogs  and  took 
a  chew  of  tobacco. 

"  Where  do  you  live?" 

"Where'd  I  live!"  he  exclaimed,  indignantly.  "I  don't  have  to 
live  any  where.  I'm  marchin'  ahed  of  civ'lization,  sir.  I'm  home- 
steadin'." 

"  Well,  where  do  you  sleep?" 

"Sleep?  I  sleep  over  on  the  Government  land,  drink  out  of  the 
North  Platte,  eat  jack  rabbits  and  raw  wolf.  But  it's  gettin'  too  thickly 
settled  round  here,  for  me.  I  saw  a  land  agent  up  at  Buffalo  Gap  to-day, 
and  they  say  a  whole  family  is  comin'  up  the  North  Platte  fifty  miles 
below  here.  It's  gettin'  too  crowded  for  me  here,  stranger.  I  leave  for 
the  Powder  river  country  to-morrow.  I  can't  stand  the  rush!" 
[Laughter.] 

But  if  you  want  to  see  gigantic,  innocent  exaggeration,  you  must  go 
West.  There,  among  the  mountain  peaks  and  broad  prairies,  the  imagi- 
nation has  something  to  feed  upon.  Their  imaginations  are  brighter 
in  the  West  than  ours  in  the  East,  and  then  they  are  not  troubled  with 
these  compunctions  of  conscience.  In  the  East  here  many  of  us  are  so 
good  —  so  good!  that  if  we  get  hold  of  a  good  joke  we  go  right  out  back 
.side  of  the  orchard,  get  right  down  in  the  corner  of  the  fence  and  giggle 


ELI  PERKINS.  221 

—  all  to  ourselves.  [Laughter.]  That's  the  meanest  kind  of  close  commun- 
ionism.    [Laughter.]    But  while  you  are  going  West,  you  must  go  to  the 
prairie  or  the  mountains  to  find  imagination.     Go  to  Kansas  —  that's 
where  exaggeration  lives  —  that's  where  it  stays.     Let  exaggeration  get 
away  from  Kansas,  and,  if  there  isn't  a  string  tied  to  it,  it  will  go  right 
back  there  again  —  so  natural!     [Laughter.] 

Now  I  was  out  in  Kansas  City  after  that  great  cyclone  they  had  there 
three  years  ago.  Terrible  cyclone!  A  third  of  Kansas  City  blown  away 

—  three  splendid  churches  went  up  with  the  rest.     But  they  were  all  per- 
fectly happy.  You  can't  make  those  Kansas  people  feel  bad,  since  they've 
got  prohibition.     [Applause.]    If  they  have  grasshoppers  out  there  now, 
they  telegraph  right  over  to  New  England,  "  Got  grasshoppers!  Got  grass- 
hoppers! ! ''     [Laughter]     And  then  they  claim  that  their  land  is  so  rich 
that  they  raise  two  crops,  grasshoppers  and  corn.     [Loud  laughter.] 

"Well,  the  next  day  after  I  got  to  Kansas  City,  I  went  up  on  the  bluffs 
with  Colonel  Coates.  He  was  going  to  show  me  where  his  house  had  stood 
the  day  before.  Not  one  brick  left  on  another —  trees  blown  out  by  the 
roots! 

Said  I,  "  Colonel,  you  had  a  terrible  cyclone  here  yesterday,  didn't 
you?" 

"  "Well,  there  was  a  little  d-r-a-f-t — "  [Laughter  interrupting  the 
sentence.] 

So  you  see  you  can  "  minify"  truth  as  well  as  magnify  it,  and  it  will 
produce  just  as  much  laughter. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  Colonel,  how  hard  did  it  blow  here  in  Kansas  City? 
Don't  deceive  me  now;  how  hard  did  it  blow  ?" 

"Blow," he  said,  "why,  it  blew — it  blew  my  cook  stove — blew  it 
away  over — blew  it  seventeen  miles,  and  the  next  day  came  back  and  got 
the  griddles!"  [Laughter.] 

"Did  it  hurt  anybody?" 

"Hurt  anybody!  Why,  there  were  some  members  of  the  legislature 
over  here  looking  around  with  their  mouths  open.  We  told  'em  they'd 
better  keep  their  mouths  closed  during  the  hurricane,  [laughter]  but 
they  were  careless — left  their  mouths  open,  and  the  wind  caught  'em  in 
the  mouth  and  turned  'em  inside  out!"  [Great  laughter.] 

"  Did  it  kill  them?"  I  asked  eagerly. 

"No,"  said  the  colonel,  wiping  his  eyes,  "it  didn't  kill  'em,  but  they 
were  a  good  deal  discouraged."  [Laughter.] 

"Why,"  he  continued  enthusiastically,  "it  blew  some  of  those  legis- 
lators— blew  'em  right  up  against  a  stone  wall  and  flattened  'em  out  as 
flat  as  pan  cakes — and — " 


222  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM:  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Why,  what  did  you  do  with  them?"  I  asked. 

"Do  with  them!  why,  we  went  out  the  next  day — scraped  them  legis- 
lators off  —  scraped  off  several  barrels  full  of  'em — [laughter]  and  sent 
them  over  to  New  England  and  sold  them  for  liver  pads!"  [Loud 
laughter.] 

Out  in  Dakota  they  have  imaginations  as  elastic  as  their  climate: 
"One  day/'  said  Elder  Russell,  "it  is  a  blizzard  from  Winnipeg,  and 
the  next  day  it  is  a  hot  simoon  from  Texas.  Sometimes  the  weather 
changes  in  a  second.  Now,  one  morning  last  spring,  to  illustrate,  Gov- 
ernor Pierce,  of  Bismarck,  and  I  were  snow-balling  each  other  in  the 
court-yard  of  the  capitol.  Losing  my  temper,  for  the  Governor  had  hit 
me  pretty  hard,  1  picked  up  a  solid  chunk  of  ice  and  threw  it  with  all 
my  might  at  his  Excellency,  who  was  standing  fifty  feet  away." 

"  Did  it  hurt  him?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,"  said  the  clergyman,  regretfully,  "  it  did  hurt  him,  and  Fm 
sorry  I  did  it  now,  but  it  was  unintentional.  You  see,  as  the  chunk  of 
ice  left  my  hand,  there  came  one  of  those  wonderful  climatic  changes 
incident  to  Dakota,  the  mercury  took  an  upward  turn,  the  ice  melted  in 
transit  and  the  hot  water  scalded  poor  Governor  Pierce  all  over  the  back 
of  his  neck."  [Laughter.] 

A  good  instance  of  exaggeration  was  the  case  of  Deacon  Munson,  of 
Central  New  York.  They  said  he  was  so  mean  that  he  used  to  stop  his 
clock  nights — to  keep  the  gearing  from  wearing  out.  [Laughter.] 

I  did't  see  this,  but  the  neighbors  said  the  Deacon  kept  a  dairy,  and 
after  skimming  his  milk  on  top,  he  used  to  walk  up  and  down  the  street, 
and  if  no  one  was  looking,  he  would  turn  it  over  and  skim  it  on  the 
bottom.  [Laughter.]  But  that  wasn't  dishonest.  It  was  only  frugal. 
He  had  a  perfect  right  to  skim  it  on  the  sides — on  the  end — [Laughter 
interrupted  the  sentence.] 

But  there  was  one  very  queer  thing  the  Deacon  used  to  do.  He  used 
to  come  down  to  the  butcher-shop  every  Saturday  night,  take  off  his 
old  slouch  hat,  full  of  something  or  other,  and  ask  the  butcher  if  he 
wouldn't  please  restuff them sausage  skins?"  [Great laughter.] 

One  day  I  asked  the  Deacon  if  there  were  any  potato  bugs  this  year? 

"  Potato  bugs  !"  he  repeated  almost  contemptuously,  "  why  I  counted 
462  potato  bugs  this  morning  on  one  stalk,  in  one  field,  and  in  the  other 
field  they  had  eaten  up  the  potatoes,  vines,  fences  and  trees,  and  were 
sitting  around  on  the  clouds,  waiting  for  me  to  plant  the  second  crop." 
[Laughter.  ] 

"Why,"  he  continued,  as  he  gesticulated  wildly,  "I  had  potato- 
bugs  this  morning  march  right  into  my  kitchen — march  right  up  to  a 


ELI  PERKINS.  223 

red-hot  stove — yank  red-hot  potatoes  right  out  of  the  oven  !  [Great 
laughter.]  I  wasn't  surprised  at  all!  But  I  was  surprised  when  I  went 
down  to.Townsend's  store  after  dinner  to  see  potato-bugs  crawling  all 
over  Townsend's  books  to  see  who'd  bought  seed  potatoes  for  next 
year."  [Loud  laughter.] 

If  you  want  to  see  gigantic,  innocent  exaggeration,  you  must  go 
down  South — go  down  to  Kentucky  or  Tennessee.  Let  a  Kentuckian 
get  hold  of  a  new  joke,  and  he  just  leaps  onto  a  thoroughbred  horse 
and  flies  for  his  neighbor's.  Half  of  the  horses  around  Lexington  are 
lame — caused  by  getting  there  early  with  jokes.  [Laughter.] 

And  no  mean  man  does  that.  0,  the  man  that  rides  up  in  front  of 
your  house  a  cold,  stormy  day,  beckons  to  you,  and  you  come  shivering 
down  to  the  gate,  and  he  tells  you  a  joke  that  makes  you  laugh  ha!  ha!  ! 
and  you  go  back  into  the  house  and  put  your  arms  around  your  wife's 
neck  and  kiss  her — no  mean  man  does  that!  [Applause.] 

Now,  I  was  down  in  Kentucky  last  spring,  during  the  overflow  on  the 
Ohio,  and  I  went  across  the  Ohio  to  Cairo — Cairo  on  the  Ohio  river — and 
sometimes  under  it.  [Laughter.]  It  was  a  great  deluge.  But  the  women 
were  all  perfectly  happy.  If  there  is  anything  that  a  woman  loves — utterly 
loves — it  is  to  have  plenty  of  nice,  wet  water  [laughter]  to  wash,  and  as 
the  water  had  been  pouring  down  the  chimneys  for  the  last  week,  faster 
than  it  could  run  out  of  the  front  door,  they  were  perfectly  happy. 
But  the  next  day  after  I  got  there,  the  river  went  down  and  the  streets 
were  very  muddy.  I  met  a  Kentucky  clergyman  there  who  told  me  about 
the  mud. 

"  You  ought  to  see  the  mud  over  in  Levy  street,"  he  said,  "mud! 
mud!  mud!  Why,  I  was  riding  over  there  in  my  carriage  this 
morning,  and  I  jumped  off  and  went  into  the  mud  clear  to  my 
ankles." 

"  Why,"  said  I,  "  that  wasn't  very  deep." 
"Well/'  he  said,  "  I  jumped  head  first."    [Laughter.] 
"But  you  ought  to  go  over  on  Water  street,  there's  mud  for  you! 
Why,  I  was  walking  along  on  Water  street — walking  along  carefully 
(they  all  walk  carefully  in  Cairo — buck-shot  land),  walking  along  care- 
fully right  in  the  middle  of  the  street,  when  I  saw  a  stove-pipe  hat.     I 
ran  up  to  it  and  kicked  it,  and  hit  a  man  right  in  the  ear."     [Laugh- 
ter.] 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  I  asked,  "what  are  you  doing  here?" 
"Keep  still!  keep  still!  keep  still!"  he  said,  "I'm  sitting  in  a  load 
of  hay."  [Loud  laughter.] 


224  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

[Mr.  Perkins  now  gave  laughter-provoking  illustrations  of  deformed  oratory  and 
deformed  gesture  which  made  the  audience  roar  with  laughter,  but  which  can  not 
be  reported .  In  fact  the  funniest  passages  in  the  lectures  of  Bill  Nye,  Artemus 
Ward,  Griswold  and  Burdette,  can  not  be  reproduced  in  cold  type.  They  must  be 
heard.] 

The  deformity  of  an  interruption  by  the  audience  often  causes 
laughter.  It  causes  a  deformity  of  a  chain  of  thought.  For  instance, 
when  President  Garfield  was  running  for  Congress,  in  war  times,  he 
made  a  war  speech  in  Ashtabula.  " Gentlemen, "  he  said,  "we  have 
taken  Atlanta,  we  have  taken  Savannah,  Columbus  and  Charleston, 
and  now  at  last  we  have  captured  Petersburg  and  occupy  Eichmond, 
and  what  remains  for  us  to  take?" 

"Take  a  drink  I"  shouted  an  Irishman.     [Laughter.] 

"  What  we  want,"  said  Sam  Cox,  in  a  great  low  tariff  speech  in  Tam- 
many Hall,  "what  we  want  is  plain  common  sense — plain  common 
sense " 

"That's  just  what  you  do  want,  Sam!"  interrupted  a  wicked  Repub- 
lican. [Laughter.] 

An  anti-temperance  man  arose  in  the  temperance  convention  at  Des 
Moines.  He  looked  so  good  and  benevolent  that  every  one  took  him 
for  a  reformer,  but  they  soon  found  out  their  mistake. 

"Speaking  of  temperance,  gentlemen  of  the  convention,"  he  said, 
"speaking  of  temperance,  I  wish  that  there  was  but  one  saloon  in  the 
United  States,  and " 

"And  what  then?"  interrupted  the  President. 

"And  that  I  owned  it  I"  But  the  wicked  man's  voice  was  drowned 
amid  hisses  and  laughter. 

Speaking  of  witty  oratory,  I've  heard  Fred  Douglass  convulse  an 
audience.  At  the  reception  of  O'Connell,  in  Masonic  Hall,  Philadel- 
phia, Douglass'  wit  and  eloquence  had  a  wonderful  effect  on  the  audi- 
ence. Eemember  it  was  a  black  man  among  Irishmen. 

Mr.  Douglass  told  about  a  conversation  that  was  overheard  in  a  crowd 
between  two  Irishmen  after  he  had  made  a  speech  in  Ohio. 

Said  one  Irishman:  "  That's  a  mighty  phoine  speech  fer  to  be  made 
by  anayger." 

"  Ah,  yes,  it  was  quoite  phoine;  but  he  is  only  half  a  nayger." 

"  Well,  if  half  a  nayger  can  make  a  speech  like  that,  phwat  the  divil 
kind  of  a  magnificent  speech  would  a  whole  nayger  make?"  [Great 
laughter.] 

Douglass  only  consented  to  address  the  Irishmen  in  order  to  give  a 
little  color  to  the  meeting.  [Laughter.] 


ELI  PERKINS.  225 

But  the  great  point  of  Douglass*  speech  was  reached  when  he  said, 
slowly  and  solemnly:  "Fifty  years  ago  I  stood  on  the  same  platform 
with  Daniel  O'Connell,  the  Irish  liberator,  on  the  banks  of  the  Liffey, 
and  before  the  vast  throng  he  turned  to  me  and  said :  '  I  rejoice  to  grasp 
by  the  hand  the  black  O'Connell  of  America. "'  [Great  applause.] 

Speaking  of  paradoxes  for  the  eye  as  well  as  the  brain.  For  instance, 
three  snakes  grab  each  other  by  the  tail  and  commence  swallowing  each 
other,  and  they  keep  it  up  till  they  all  disappear.  [Laughter.] 

A  printer  would  laugh  to  see  a  verse  of  poetry  deformed  by  setting 
it  up  from  right  to  left,  instead  of  the  regular  way. 

em  ot  smees  tl 
eb  ot  thguo  erehT 

gnitirw  fo  elyts  laiceps  A 
esoht  f  o  csu  roF 
'esorp  ni  kniht  ohW 

.gnitidni  rieht  niemyhr  duA 

All  the  fun  in  Humpty  Dumpty  is  caused  by  sensuous  deformities, 
not  intellectual.  [Applause.] 

************ 

Now  with  our  new  theory  of  the  deformities  we  can  produce  laugh- 
ter talking  on  any  subject.  We  could  produce  laughter  describing  a 
battle — a  bloody  battle.  Take  the  battle  of  Bull  Run.  Now,  what 
could  be  more  dreadful  than  that  bloody  battle  of  Bull  Run — with  its 
gore  and  carnage,  and  a  nation's  life  at  stake.  But  to  make  people  laugh, 
you  would  have  to  describe  that  battle  as  my  Uncle  William  would.  He 
was  there,  Uncle  William  was,  boldly  fighting  for  three  days — some- 
times on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other.  [Laughter.] 

I  can  see  my  Uncle  in  my  mind's  eye  fighting  at  Bull  Run,  even  as 
I  saw  him  with  my  real  eye  fighting  at  the  battle  of  Gettysburg — for,  I, 
too,  was  there,  fighting  for  my  country,  [applause]  and  while  that 
bloody  conflict  was  at  its  height,  and  while  the  bloody  messengers  of 
death  flew  thick  and  fast  around  me I — I  left!  [Loud  laughter.] 

At  one  time  I  saw  a  brigade  of  rebels  coming  up  on  the  right  flank 
and  another  coming  up  on  the  left  flank,  and  I  just  stepped  aside  and 
— let  them  come  up!  [Laughter.] 

Why,  my  Uncle  William,  for  distinguished  services  at  the  battle  of 
Bull  Run,  thrice  refused  a — a  German  silver  watch — stem  winder. 
[Laughter.]  When  General  Butler  urged  it  upon  him  he  said: 

"No,  your  Honor,  I  am  not  guilty,  [laughter]  give  it  to  General 
Butler.  He  ought  to  be  watched.  [Laughter.] 

Alas!  my  uncle  afterwards  fell  in  the  battle  of  the  Wilderness — but 

— he  got  up  again!     [Laughter.] 
15 


226  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

He  said  he  didn't  want  to  stand  there  and — and  interfere  with  the 
bullets.  [Loud  laughter.] 

"When  I  asked  Uncle  "William  what  was  the  worst  battle  he  was  ever 
in — where  the  balls  were  the  thickest — he  said: 

"  Gettysburg  was  the  spot.  The  balls  flew  around  us  like  hail-stones, 
cannister  hissed  through  the  air  and " 

"Why  didn't  you  get  behind  a  tree  ?" 

"Get  behind  a  tree!"  said  he,  "Why,  there  weren't  trees  enough 
for  the  officers."  [Laughter.] 

Yes,  my  uncle  was  a  patriotic  man.  He  loved  the  glorious  stars 
and  stripes — loved  to  rally  around  the  dear  old  flag,  and  he  said  he 
was  willing  to  leave  right  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight  any  time,  just 
to  go  to  the  rear  and  rally  around  it.  [Loud  laughter.] 

Again,  suppose  you  should  ask  a  wit  like  Artemus  Ward  to  produce 
laughter  talking  about  temperance.  He  could  do  it  by  using  deformed 
oratory,  rhetoric,  grammar  and  the  other  deformities  which  I  have  men- 
tioned. He  would  have  to  talk  a  good  deal,  as  my  Uncle  Consider 
would. 

My  Uncle  Consider  says,  if  he  had  his  way,  he  would  make  every  man 
temperate,  if  he  had  to  hang  him  to  do  it.  [Laughter.] 

One  day  he  came  to  me,  and  said  he,  "  Eli,  if  you  drink  wine,  you 
will  walk  in  winding  ways;  if  you  carry  too  much  beer,  the  bier  will  soon 
carry  you;  if  you  drink  brandy  punches,  you  will  get  handy  punches, 
and  if  you  get  the  best  of  whisky,  whisky  will  get  the  best  of  yon."" 
[Laughter.] 

Now  my  Uncle  William  is  not  temperate  like  my  Uncle  Consider. 
Far  different. 

You  could  see  by  his  features,  if  you  could  see  them,  that  he  used  to- 
indulge  in  the  flowing  bowl.  He  used  to  drink  every  once  in  a  while 
with  people  who  invited  him,  and  then  he  used  to  slide  out  and  drink 
oetween  drinks  by  himself.  [Laughter.] 

He  used  to  drink  with  impunity — or  with  anybody  else  who  invited 
him.  [Laughter.] 

One  day  he  asked  Uncle  Consider  to  drink  with  him.  The  good  old 
man  took  umbrage  —  but  Uncle  William  he  took  whisky.  [Laughter.} 

Uncle  William  used  to  do  a  great  many  queer  things  when  he  had 
taken  too  much  whisky  with  his  water.  One  day  he  insisted  against 
his  wife's  wishes  —  against  his  wife's  advice — (0,  gentlemen,  you  should 
never  go  against  your  wife's  advice!  Our  wives  know  more  than  we  — 
they  know  more  than  we — and  they  are  willing  to  admit  it)  [loud 
laughter] — I  say  my  Uncle  William  insisted  against  his  wife's  wishes  on 
smoking  on  a  load  of  hay  —  coming  home  shortly  afterward  without  any 


ELI  PERKINS.  227 

whiskers  or  eyebrows,  and  the  iron  work  of  his  wagon  in  a  gunny-bag. 
[Laughter.] 

Why,  drinking  so  hard  made  my  Uncle  William  so  absent-minded 
that  one  night  he  came  home  from  the  lodge,  got  up  and  washed  the 
face  of  the  clock  and  then  deliberately  got  down  and  wound  up  the 
fbaby  and  set  it  forward  fifteen  minutes.     [Loud  laughter.] 


What  is  caricature? 

Caricature  is  wit  with  the  brush.  But  there  never  was  a  caricaturist 
who  ever  produced  laughter  without  deforming  something — either  mag- 
nifying or  minifying  it,  and  whenever  Tom  Nast  or  Cruikshanks  or  John 
Leech  or  Hogarth,  those  splendid  caricaturists,  have  produced  laughter, 
they  have  had  to  defo.rm  something — that  is  add  imagination  to  fact. 

When  Nast  wanted  to  make  us  all  laugh  at  Carl  Schurz,  in  the 
Elaine  campaign,  he  had  to  exaggerate  him.  You  wouldn't  have 
laughed  at  Carl  Schurz  if  Nast  had  painted  him  truthfully;  you  never 
laugh  at  the  truth  in  art.  Instead  of  that,  Nast,  you  remember,  exag- 
gerated Carl  Schurz.  He  painted  him  with  a  lean,  lank,  long  neck. 
Then  he  put  some  great  green  goggles  on  him.  Then  he  stuck  some 
little  pipe-stem  legs  into  him.  [Laughter.]  Now,  Carl  Schurz'  legs  are 
bigger  than  slate  pencils.  [Laughter.] 

You  all  noticed  that  Tom  Nast  didn't  make  any  fun  of  Carl  Schurz 
at  the  last  election — and  do  you  know  why?  It  was  because  they  were 
brother  mugwumps,  [laughter]  and  one  mugwump  never  makes  fun  of 
another  mugwump.  In  order  to  make  fun  of  a  mugwump  you've  got  to 

exaggerate  him,  and you  can't  do  it.    [Loud  laughter.]   Nature  has 

finished  him.     [Continued  laughter] 

Suppose  a  witty  artist,  a  caricaturist,  wanted  to  make  you  laugh  at 
Ben  Butler.  How  would  he  go  to  work?  Just  like  the  writer.  First 
he  would  paint  Ben  Butler  just  as  he  is.  No  laughter  now.  Then  he 
would  look  for  some  salient  feature  about  Butler  that  he  could 
exaggerate.  He  would  take  his  wife  with  him.  Our  wives  are  very 
observing.  She  would  look  at  Butler's  eyes  and  say: 

"  Why  husband,  Butler's  eyes  are  cut  on  a  bias  ! " 

"So  they  are  —  and  then  he  cuts  them  more  on  the  bias  — this  way 
[pulling  down  the  outside  corners  of  his  eyes,  amid  great  laughter]. 

"  And  he's  got  a  little  bald  spot  on  the  top  of  his  head  !" 

"So  he  has  —  and  he  makes  a  great  big  bald  spot  all  over  his  head" 
[moving  the  palm  of  his  hand  all  over  his  head]. 

"And  he's  got  little  short  hair  sticking  out  from  under  that  bald 
spot  ?" 


228 


KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


"  So  he  has,  and  the  artist  makes  long  hair  sticking  down  this  way 
[the  speaker  still  putting  down  his  eye-lids  and  rolling  his  eye-balls  up, 
amid  great  laughter],  and  when  the  artist  gets  through  with  this  picture, 
he's  got  a  better  likeness  of  Butler  than  a  photograph  —  and  you  recog- 
nize it  quicker  than  a  photograph,  because  the  caricaturist  has  multiplied 
the  points  of  likeness,  carried  them  farther  than  nature. 


BEN"  BUTLER,  CAKICATURED  BY  NAST- 

One  day,  after  I  had  made  these  remarks  on  caricature,  Tom  Nast, 
that  great  caricaturist,  took  up  this  old  piece  of  wrapping  paper  [holding 
it  up  to  the  audience]  and  a  boot  brush,  and  the  great  caricaturist  made 
ten  lightning  strokes  of  the  brush,  but  they  were  the  strokes  of  a  master — 
«nd  the  result  was  this  wonderful  picture  of  Butler — beautiful  Butler! 
[Great  laughter  in  the  audience  as  the  humorist  displayed  the  Car- 
icature.] 


ELI  PERKINS.  229 

Now,  again,  suppose  a  true  artist  should  paint  a  mule — a  patient 
mule.  A  mule  is  patient  because  he  is  ashamed  of  himself.  [Laughter.] 
If  he  should  paint  that  mule  truthfully,  you  wouldn't  laugh.  Why,  I  saw 
a  mule  painted  in  St.  Petersburg,  Eussia,  by  that  great  animal  painter, 
Shreyer,  that  sold  for  fifteen  thousand  dollars — a  simple  mule  eating  a 
lock  of  hay — while  the  original  mule  from  which  he  painted  it  you  could 
buy  for  a  dollar  and  thirty  cents.  [Laughter.]  No  one  laughed  at  that 
mule.  They  stood  by  it  in  mute  admiration.  They  said,  ( '  what  a  mas- 
ter is  this  who  can  paint  a  mule  like  that."  They  stood  before  that 
mule  as  solemnly  and  religiously  as  I  saw  the  tourists  standing  before 
Raphael's  Sistine  Madonna,  in  Dresden.  But  another  artist,  a  witty 
artist,  painted  that  mule  and  everybody  was  laughing  at  it.  First  he 
painted  the  mule  truthfully.  No  laughter  now.  Then  he  looked  for 
some  salient  feature  of  the  mule  that  he  could  exaggerate.  He  didn't 
take  his  wife  with  him — 0,  no,  a  man  can  see  the  main  features  of  the 
mule!  [Laughter.]  Smart  man!  [Laughter.]  Well  he  took  that  main 
feature  of  the  mule  —  that  mule's  ear,  [laughter]  and  ran  it  on  up 
through  the  trees,  and  the  chickens  were  roosting  on  it.  [Laughter.] 
Then  he  took  the  other  main  feature  and  spread  it  around  on  the  ground 
and  the  boys  were  skating  on  it.  [Laughter.] 

Now,  when  Shreyer  painted  that  mule  eating  a  lock  of  hay  and  sold 
it  for  fifteen  thousand  dollars — and  that  is  no  uncommon  thing  in  art. 
Why,  one  day  Kuaus,  that  great  German  artist,  painted  a  dirty,  sooty 
chimney-sweep — a  colored  chimney-sweep  at  that.  You  wouldn't  have 
that  chimney-sweep  in  your  door-yard.  But  just  the  moment  he  got  it 
done,  so  truthfully  was  it  painted  that  A.  T.  Stewart  paid  him  forty 
thousand  dollars  for  it.  That  is  what  art  will  do. 

And  Dickens  used  to  go  down  into  the  slums  of  London,  get  hold  of 
such  strange  characters  as  Bill  Sykes  and  Nancy — murderers  and  mur- 
deresses. You  wouldn't  speak  to  Nancy  Sykes.  "Go  away,  don't  come  near 
me!"  But  Dickens  describes  them  so  truthfully  in  his  book,  that  by-and- 
by  you  read  about  them  on  Sunday  morning  in  your  parlor.  [Applause.] 
And  Meissonier,  that  great  French  master,  once  painted  a  miserable 
Dutch  Spy.  You  wouldn't  have  that  spy  on  your  door-step.  But  when 
he  got  it  done,  so  truthfully  was  it  painted  that  Vanderbilt  gave  him 
fifty  thousand  dollars  for  it,  and,  to-day,  that  spy  hangs  in  that  beautiful, 
brown  stone,  palace  on  Fifth  avenue.  That  is  what  art  will  do.  So 
I  say  when  Shreyer  painted  that  mule  and  sold  the  picture  for  fifteen 
thousand  dollars,  what  did  he  sell?  He  didn't  sell  the  mule;  you  could 
buy  the  mule  for  five.  He  sold  the  truth.  [Applause.]  The  truth  on 


£30  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

canvas.  0,  he  who  can  paint  the  truth  on  canvas  like  Shreyer  and 
Meissonier  or  Knaus — or  he  who  can  write  it  on  paper  like  Dickens  and 
Washington  Irving — money  can't  buy  it.  [Applause.] 

So,  I  say,  that  all  good  humor,  in  art  or  literature,  is  the  truth  itself; 
and  all  good  wit  in  art  or  literature  is  based  upon  the  truth.  It  is  the 
truth  improved  upon  by  the  human  imagination — carried  farther  than 
nature  and  made  truer  than  it  was  before,  like  the  picture  of  Butler 
[Applause.]  But  0,  what  a  gift  it  is  to  follow  nature!  Suppose  Nast, 
in  caricaturing  Bulter,  had  not  followed  nature!  Suppose,  instead  of 
painting  Butler's  eyes  "more  on  the  bias,"  he  had  lifted  them  up 
straight? 

He  would  have  looked  like  a  Chinaman.  His  work  would  have  been 
a  wretched  botch. 

Now,  again,  suppose  a  caricaturist  wanted  to  exaggerate  a  pug  nose, 
how  would  he  do  it?  Why,  he'd  make  it  pugger  and  pugger  till  it 
finally  dwindled  down  to  a  wart.  [Laughter.]  Again,  when  it  comes 
to  human  character,  what  a  task  it  is  to  improve  upon  nature!  To  do 
that,  the  writer  should  not  only  be  a  philosopher,  but  he  should  be  a 
moral  man,  and  it  were  better  were  he  a  Christian.  The  world  is  full 
of  wicked  books  where  the  writers  have  not  improved  upon  human 
character.  They  have  not  exaggerated  it  upward  toward  Heaven 
and  virtue,  but  downward,  away  from  truth,  toward  vice  and  hell! 
[Applause.]  That  is  what  is  the  matter  with  Peck's  "  Bad  Boy."  Peck 
wasn't  a  philosopher  when  he  wrote  that  book,  and  instead  of  exaggerat- 
ing that  sweet  boy  up  toward  Heaven,  he  exaggerated  him  downward 
toward  vice,  and  the  book  is  gone,  condemned  by  morality.  You  will 
see  it  in  no  school  library.  Was  it  based  upon  the  truth?  Many  of  you 
have  read  it  as  the  brakeman  dropped  it,  and  now,  tell  me  frankly,  could 
there  be  a  father  in  real  life  so  ignorant,  so  stupid  and  low,  that  he 
would  let  his  boy  take  him  by  the  ear,  lead  him  out  into  the  garden, 
tell  him  to  kneel  down,  and  let  a  buck — buck — buck  him?  [Laughter.] 

Why  a  boy  mean  enough  to  treat  his  father  so — revere  thy  father!  — 
and  a  father  silly  enough  to  allow  himself  to  be  treated  so;  why  they  both 
ought  to  be  taken  by  .the  seats  of  their  trousers  and  dropped  down  a 
well!  [Applause.]  And  they  have  been  dropped  down  a  well.  Human 
nature,  refined  hum  n  nature,  couldn't  stand  it. 

But  Mrs.  Burnett  has  come  with  that  same  boy  again.  She  is  a  master 
of  her  art.  She  takes  that  same  sweet  boy,  calls  him  Lord  Fauntleroy, 
and  exaggerates  him  upward  toward  Heaven  and  virtue.  Sweet  boy! 
And  when  our  good  mothers  see  him  in  the  play,  so  pure  and  gentle,  so 
true  to  nature,  they  want  to  hug  him  to  their  bosoms.  [Applause.] 


ELI  PERKINS.  231 

Mothers,  if  your  boy's  soul  has  been  blackened  by  Peck's  bad  boy,  buy 
him  Lord  Fauntleroy  and  whiten  it  out  again!  [Applause.] 

Now  Baron  Munchausen  will  live  a  thousand  years.  We  see  him  in 
every  school  library,  bound  in  calf.  He  never  debased  human  charac- 
ter. Fd  as  soon  think  of  having  a  library  without  "Don  Quixote/' 
without  Dean  Swift's  "Tale  of  a  Tub,"  without  "Gulliver's  Travels" 
or  without  that  splendid  humor  of  John  Bunyan,  as  to  have  a  library 
without  Baron  Munchausen.  [Applause.] 

John  Bunyan  a  humorist!  I  should  say  so!  You  white-haired 
Christians  who  have  been  in  the  Slough  of  Despond  with  the  load  of  sin 
upon  your  back — who  have  come  up  through  the  Wilderness  of  Doubt 
and  who  now  stand  on  the  shores  of  the  beautiful  River  of  Life,  look- 
ing at  the  pearly  gates  of  Paradise  beyond — Christians,  you  know  John 
Bunyan  has  described  your  case  close  to  life  a  thousand  times.  [Applause.  ] 
John  Bunyan,  we  take  off  our  hats  to  you,  the  King  of  humorists  and 
the  King  of  Truth!  [Loud  applause.] 

To  illustrate  one  of  Baron  Munchausen's  exaggerations,  I  change 
one  of  his  stories  into  modern  language.  One  day  the  Baron  was  riding 
along  in  his  cutter  hunting  for  wolves  near  St.  Petersburgh,  when  he  was 
attacked  by  a  fierce  pack  of  wolves  from  behind.  Oh,  they  were  savage 
fellows,  these  wolves  were,  with  ponderous,  open  jaws!  Pretty  soon  a 
wolf  made  a  leap  for  him.  The  Baron  laid  right  down  in  his  cutter, 
the  wolf  went  right  over  the  cutter,  mouth  open,  bit  a  hole  right  into 
the  horse,  when  the  Baron  jumped  up,  kicked  the  wolf  clear  in — the 
wolf  went  on  eating — eating — ate  his  way  right  to  the  bit,  and  the 
Baron  drove  that  wolf  right  into  St.  Petersburgh!  [Uproarious  laugh- 
ter.] 

In  conclusion  I  will  say  that  the  brightest  wit  will  not  produce 
laughter  unless  you  can  get  your  audience  to  thinking.  They  talk 
about  the  five  senses,  seeing,  hearing,  smelling,  tasting  and  feeling  ;  the 
sixth  sense  is  the  brain,  the  very  dome  of  a  man's  head,  and  that  is  for 
wit. 

It  is  only  the  virtuous  man  who  has  a  clear  head,  who  can  see  through 
the  most  subtle  wit.  The  wicked  man,  sordid  with  vice,  and  with  mind 
blunted  with  intemperance,  cannot  appreciate  a  fine  joke.  Such  jokes 
we  should  keep  for  the  clear-eyed  moral  man.  He  appreciates  them,  and 
that  is  his  reward  for  being  virtuous.  Be  virtuous  and  you  will  be  happy 
— see  more  joy  and  jokes  in  life.  I  know  this  from  my  own  experience. 
[Laughter.] 

The  clear-eyed  moral  man  is  a  millionaire — at  heart.  God  gives  him 
a  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  enjoyment  out  of  common  things  every 


232  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

day.  Never  discourage  the  happy  story-teller.  I  have  listened  many  a 
time  to  the  recital  of  a  long  story  out  of  my  own  book!  I  didn't  ring  the 
chestnut  bell  on  the  dear  good  soul  who  tried  to  make  me  happy.  One 
of  the  greatest  blessings  ever  given  to  man  is  that  of  laughter.  I  have 
seen  many  men  who  could  create  laughter,  and  who  could  enjoy  laugh- 
ter, but  I  have  never  yet  heard  any  one  thank  God  for  the  blessing  of 
laughter.  The  chestnutphobia  is  the  thing  we  should  avoid.  The 
glorious  sunshine  is  a  chestnut,  the  sparkling  water  is  a  chestnut,  the 
mother  love  is  a  chestnut,  aye,  happiness  itself  is  a  chestnut.  The  man 
who  is  afflicted  with  chestnutphobia  would  become  tired  of  the  harps  of 
heaven  after  a  thousand  years,  and  long  for  another  instrument.  The 
new  song  would  become  old  to  him — he  would  yearn  for  a  change  of 
programme. 

"0,  rippling  river  of  laughter,  thou  art  the  blessed  boundary  line 
betwixt  the  beast,  and  men,  and  every  wayward  wave  of  thine  doth 
drown  some  fretful  fiend  of  care  !  0,  laughter,  rosy-dipped  laughter  of 
joy!  there  are  dimples  enough  in  thy  cheeks  to  catch  and  hold  and 
glorify  all  the  tears  of  grief! " 

"  But  the  source  of  that  river  must  be  in  the  fountain  of  purity." 
[Applause.] 

ELI  PERKINS'  CHILDREN  STORIES. 

For  years  Eli  Perkins  has  been  writing  children  stories,  inspired 
mostly  by  his  little  girl  Ethel.  A  few  of  them  are  appended: 

A  SWEET  COMPLIMENT. — That  was  a  delicate  compliment  given  by 
a  ragged,  little  Irish  newsboy,  to  the  pretty  girl  who  bought  a  paper  of 
him.  "Poor  little  fellow/'  said  she,  "ain't  you  very  cold?" 

"  I  was,  ma'am,  before  you  passed,"  he  replied. 

Is  GOD  DEAD? — "Papa, "asked  a  little  girl  whose  father  had  become 
quite  worldly,  and  had  given  up  family  prayers — "I  say,  papa,  is  God 
dead?" 

'•'No,  my  child,  why  do  you  ask  that?" 

"Why,  Pa,  you  never  talk  to  him  now  as  you  used  to  do." 

These  words  haunted  him  until  he  was  reclaimed. 

ETHEL'S  CARES. — "Oh,  dear!  "  said  little  Ethel,  "I  have  so  many 
cares.  Nothing  but  trouble  all  the  time." 

"What  has  happened  now,  Ethel?''  asked  her  sympathetic  play- 
fellow. 

"Why,  yesterdaya  little  baby  sister  arrived,  and  papa  is  on  a  journey. 
Mamma  came  very  near  being  gone,  too.  I  don't  know  what  I  should 
have  done  if  mamma  hadn't  been  home  to  take  care  of  it! " 


ELI  PERKINS.  233 

EXACT  OBEDIENCE. — "Ethel,  Fd  like  just  awfully  to  kiss  you,  but 
I  expect  it  wouldn't  do.  You  know  your  mamma  said  you  mustn't  never 
kiss  the  boys/'  said  Willie,  regretfully,  as  he  looked  in  Ethel's  beauti- 
ful eyes. 

"  Yes,  that's  just  what  she  said,  Willie.  That  is,  it's  about  what 
she  said.  I  'member  just  as  well  !  She  says  to  me,  she  says,  'Ethel 
don't  you  ever  let  me  see  you  kiss  the  boys.'  Mamma  she's  gone  over  to 
Mrs.  Woodsess." 

ETHEL'S  GRANDMOTHER. — When  Ethel  tumbled  down  and  broke  a 
basket  of  eggs,  the  children  all  cried: 

"  Oh,  Ethel,  won't  you  catch  it  when  your  mother  sees  those  broken 
eggs.  Won't  you,  though!" 

"No,  I  won't  tach  it,  either/'  said  Ethel.  "I  won't  tach  it  at  all. 
Fz  dot  a  dranmother!" 

ETHEL'S  BIBLE  EXPLANATION. — "  What  is  it  to  bear  false  witness 
against  thy  neighbor?"  asked  Ethel's  benevolent  old  clergyman  to  the 
infant  class  of  Sabbath-school  scholars. 

"  It's  telling  falsehoods  about  them,"  said  little  Emma. 

"Partly  right,  and  partly  wrong,"  said  the  clergyman. 

"  I  know,"  said  Ethel,  holding  her  little  hand  high  up  in  the  air. 
"  It's  when  nobody  did  anything  and  somebody  went  and  told  of  it." 

CHILDREN'S  INNOCENT  LOVE. — "It  was  a  sweet  love  saying,  and 
worthy  of  Him  who  took  little  children  up." 

Little  Philip  fell  down  stairs  one  day  and  injured  his  face  so  seriously 
that  for  a  long  time  he  could  not  speak.  When  he  did  open  his  lips, 
however,  it  was  not  to  complain  of  pain.  Looking  up  at  his  mother, 
he  whispered,  trying  to  smile  through  his  tears: 

"  Fm  pretty  glad  'twasn't  my  little  sister  ! " 

ETHEL'S  EXCUSE. — Ethel  used  to  play  a  good  deal  in  the  Sabbath- 
school  class.  One  day  she  had  been  very  quiet.  She  sat  up  prim  and 
behaved  herself  so  nicely,  that,  after  the  recitation  was  over,  the  teacher 
remarked: 

"  Ethel,  my  dear,  you  were  a  very  good  little  girl  to-day." 

"  Yes'm.     I  couldn't  help  being  good.     I  dot  a  tiff  neck." 

ETHEL'S  WISDOM. — When  Ethel's  mother  came  back  from  the  opera 
she  stooped  over  to  kiss  her.  As  her  big  eyes  opened,  her  mother  said: 
"My  darling,  did  you  say  your  prayers  to-night?" 

"Yes,  mamma,  I  said  'em  all  alone." 

"But  who  did  you  say  them  to,  Ethel,  when  the  maid  was  out 
with  me?" 


334  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"Well,  mamma,  when  I  went  to  bed  I  looked  around  the  house  for 
somebody  to  say  my  prayers  to,  and  there  wasn't  nobody  in  the  house  to 
say  'em  to,  and  so  I  said  'em  to  God/' 

His  LIP  SLIPPED. — Ethel  went  to  Dodworth's  dancing  class,  and 
one  day,  when  the  little  boys  and  girls  were  dancing,  they  say  Freddy 
Vanderbilt  kissed  her. 

When  she  got  home  she  rushed  up  to  her  mother  with  tears  in  her 
eyes,  and  exclaimed,  "  0,  mamma,  a  boy  kissed  me!" 

"  0,  Ethel,"  said  her  mother,  with  mock  grief.  "  I'm  so  ashamed 
to  think  you  should  let  a  little  boy  kiss  you ! " 

"  Well,  mamma,"  said  Ethel,  after  a  little  reflection,  "  I  couldn't 
help  it." 

"  You  couldn't  help  it?"  exclaimed  her  mother. 

"  No,  mamma.  You  see  Freddy  and  I  were  dancing  the  polka, 
Freddy  had  to  stand  up  close  to  me,  and  all  at  once  his  lip  slipped  and 
the  kiss  happened." 

ETHEL'S  QUEER  ANSWER. — When  Ethel  was  fire  years  old  she  caught 
a  cold  that  made  her  very  hoarse,  and  right  in  the  middle  of  it  she  went 
to  pay  a  visit  to  Mrs.  James  Shindler,  her  grandmother.  During  the  day 
she  recited  her  various  successes  at  school,  and  ended  by  declaring  that 
she  could  read  a  good  deal  better  than  Sabrina,  who  was  eight  years  old. 

"  But  wouldn't  it  sound  better  if  some  one  else  said  it?"  asked  Mrs. 
Shindler. 

11  Yes,"  answered  Ethel  witha  sober  countenance,  "  I  think  it  would; 
.1  have  such  a  bad  cold  I  tant  say  it  very  well." 

WITTY  BLUNDER. — In  Portland,  where  I  lectured  for  the  Y.  M.  C. 
A.,  I  was  asked  to  say  something  to  the  Sabbath-school  scholars  on 
Sunday  evening.  Now  my  talks  are  "keyed  up"  to  college  audiences 
•or  church  audiences,  which  are  about  as  keen  of  appreciation  as  college 
audiences.  I  could  not  think  of  any  thing  to  talk  about,  so  I  looked  at 
the  children  and  said: 

"Now,  children,  about  what  shall  I  talk  to-night?" 

"  About  three  minutes,"  said  a  little  girl. 

The  witty  answer  convulsed  the  church  with  laughter,  and  the  ice 
-once  broken,  I  had  no  trouble  afterwards." 

THOSE  WICKED  UNCLES. — In  my  Sunday-school  class  when  I  was 
in  college,  was  a  dear,  sweet  little  boy.  He  was  beloved  by  every  one, 
and  especially  by  his  Uncle  William.  Still  his  uncle  used  to  tease  him 
a  good  deal,  and  teach  him  all  kinds  of  nonsense  rhymes,  just  to  plague 
his  mother.  One  day  I  was  telling  the  .children  about  satan.  I  told 
them  that  satan  was  a  wicked  tempter,  and  that  is  why  our  Savior 
said,  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan!" 


ELI  PERKINS.  235 

"Now,"  said  I,  "can  any  of  you  children  tell  me  any  thing  about 
Satan." 

"  Alfred  can,"  spoke  up  one  little  fellow. 

"Well,  Alfred,"  I  said,  "you  can  stand  up  and  tell  us  what  you 
know  about  Satan." 

Then  Alfred  arose  proudly,  and  repeated  in  a  boyish  key: 

"  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep, 
I  pray  the  Lord  my  soul  to  keep; 
If  I  die  before  I  wake, 
It'll  puzzle  Satan  to  pull  me  straight." 

"  Why,  Alfred,"  I  said,  in  amazement,  "did  your  mother  teach  you 
that?" 

"No,  but  my  Uncle  William  did! " 

CHILDREN'S  DREADFUL  QUESTIONS.  —  One  day  I  sat  on  the  New 
York  Central  train,  behind  a  pale,  care-worn  lady,  who  was  taking  a 
little  boy  from  Albany  to  Eochester.  As  the  little  boy  was  of  a  very 
inquiring  mind,  and  every  thing  seemed  to  attract  his  attention,  I  could 
not  help  listening  to  some  of  his  questions. 

"What  is  that,  Auntie?"  the  little  boy  commenced,  pointing  to  a 
stack  of  hay  on  the  marsh. 

"  Oh,  that's  hay,  dearest,"  answered  the  care-worn  lady. 

"What  is  hay,  Auntie?" 

"  Why,  hay  is  hay,  dear." 

"  But  what  is  hay  made  of?  " 

"  Why,  hay  is  made  of  dirt  and  water  u.  4  air  " 

"Who  makes  it?" 

"God  makes  it,  dear." 

"Does  he  make  it  in  the  day  time  or  in  the  .  ;ght?w 

"  In  both,  dear." 

"And  Sundays?" 

"Yes,  all  the  time." 

"  Ain't  it  wicked  to  make  hay  on  Sunday,  Auntie?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  I'd  keep  still,  Willie,  that's  a  dear.  Auntie  is 
tired." 

After  remaining  quiet  a  moment,  little  Willie  broke  out: 

"  Where  do  stars  come  from,  Auntie?" 

"I  don't  know;  nobody  knows." 

"Did  the  moon  lay  'em?" 

"  Yes,  I  guess  so,"  replied  the  wicked  lady. 

"Can  the  moon  lay  eggs,  too?" 

"I  suppose  so.     Don't  bother  me." 

A  short  silence,  when  Willie  broke  out  again: 


236  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Bennie  says  oxins  is  a  owl,  Auntie;  is  they?" 

"  Oh,  perhaps  so!  " 

"  I  think  a  whale  could  lay  eggs — don't  you,  Auntie?  " 

"  Oh,  yes;  I  guess  so,"  said  the  shameless  woman. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  a  whale  on  his  nest?  " 

"  Oh,  I  guess  so." 

"Where?" 

"  I  mean  no.     Willie,  you  must  be  quiet;  I'm  getting  crazy!" 

"  What  makes  you  crazy,  Auntie?" 

"  Oh,  dear,  you  ask  so  many  questions! " 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  little  fly  eat  sugar?  " 

"  Yes,  dear." 

"Where?" 

"Willie,  sit  down  on  the  seat,  and  be  still,  or  I'll  have  to  shake  yon! 
Now,  not  another  word!  " 

And  the  lady  pointed  her  finger  sharply  at  the  little  boy,  as  if  she 
were  going  to  stick  a  pin  through  him.  If  she  had,  what  a  wicked 
woman  she  would  have  been! 

And  still  there  are  8,946,217  sweet,  innocent  little  boys,  just  like 
Willie,  in  the  United  States,  who,  though  innocent  themselves,  cause  a 
good  deal  of  mental  profanity. 

ELI  PERKINS'  LECTURE  TICKET. 

Eli  Perkins  often  used,  for  college  lectures,  a  burlesque  admission 
ticket.  We  copy  one  used  at  Union  College,  Schenectady,  his  alma  mater. 


TICISIIET 

GOOD  ANYWHERE  ON  EARTH  FOR  962  YEARS. 


AT    LARGE. 

ADMIT  THE  BEARER  to  Eli  Perkins'  Lecture,  anywhere  in  the 
world,  for  years  and  years. 


The  Lecturer  will  commence  at  8  o'clock  sharp,  and  continue  till  some- 
body request  him  to  stop. 

In  case  of  an  accident  to  the  lecturer,  or  if  he  should  die  or  be  hung 
before  the  evening  of  the  disturbance,  this  ticket  will  admit  the  bearer 
to  a  front  seat  at  the  funeral,  where  he  can  sit  and  enjoy  himself  the 
same  as  at  the  lecture. 

The  highest  priced  seats,  those  nearest  tlie  door,  are  reserved  for  tJie 
particular  friends  of  the  speaker. 

[Please  don't  turn  over. 


ELI  PERKINS.  237 

On  the  reverse  side  of  the  card  were  the  following  burlesque  press 
testimonials: 


OPINIONS   OF  THE    PRESS. 

Mr.  Perkins  refers  with  pride  to  the  following  high  testimonials: 

When  Eli  Perkins  delivered  his  lecture  in  the  Illinois  House  of  Reprehen- 
sibles,  there  was  a  great  rush— hundreds  of  people  left  the  building,  and  they 
said  if  he  had  repeated  it  the  next  night  they  would  have  left  the  city.— Chicago 
Times. 

Mr.  Beecher,  an  author  quite  well  known  in  Brooklyn,  thus  writes 
to  the  London  Times  in  regard  to  Mr.  Perkins'  eloquence: 

Words  cannot  describe  the  impressive  sight.  How  sublime  1  to  see  Mr. 
Perkins  standing  perfectly  erect,  with  one  hand  on  his  broad,  massive,  thick 
skull,  talking  to  the  educated  classes — to  see  the  great  orator  declaiming  per- 
fectly unmoved,  while  streams  of  people  got  up  and  went  out !  How  grand  a 
spectacle,  as  joke  after  joke  fell  from  the  eloquent  lips  of  this  Cicero  of  orators, 
to  watch  the  enthusiastic  crowds  arising,  majestically,  as  one  man  and  waving 
their  hands  as  they  clamorously  demanded  their — money  back  at  the  box  office. 

Says  the  genial  editor  of  the  Congressional  Globe: 

We  never,  but  once,  experienced  more  real  genuine  pleasure  than  when 
this  eloquent  man  (Mr.  Perkins)  closed  his  remarks.  That  occasion  was  when 
we  won  the  nTections  of  a  beautiful  young  lady,  and  gained  a  mother-in-law 
— and  then  sa\v  that  mother-in-law  sweetly  and  serenely  pass  away. 

P.  S. — Eli  Perkins  distributes  a  six-dollar  Chromo  to  all  who  remain 
to  the  end  of  the  lecture.  Parties  of  six  who  sit  the  lecture  out,  will  be 
given  a  House  and  Lot. 


THE  "DANBURY  NEWS   MAN.' 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

James  Montgomery  Bailey,  who  has  made  himself  famous  as  the  "  Danbury  News 
Man,"  was  born  in  Albany,  New  York,  September  25, 1841.  On  completing  his  educa- 
tion, he  gave  his  services  to  his  country,  and  fought  through  the  late  war  in  a  Con- 
necticut regiment.  After  the  war  he  settled  in  Danbury  and  established  the  News. 
His  articles  were  widely  copied  wherever  the  English  language  went,  and  his  fame 
will  go  down  with  the  foremost  humorous  writers  of  the  country.  Mr.  Bailey  has- 
written  several  books,  and  his  ' '  Life  in  Danbury  "  is  now  having  a  large  sale. 

Mr.  Bailey's  wit  has  a  delicious  mental  flavor.  In  fact,  it  is 
always  the  shrewd,  thoughtful  man  who  enjoys  it.  It  is  not  in 
long,  inane  dialogues,  but  a  flash  of  thought.  The  humorist  says  a. 
poor  man  came  to  him  with  tears  in  his  eyes  one  day,  asking  for 
help  for  his  destitute  and  starving  children. 

"  "What  do  you  need  most  ?"  asked  Mr.  Bailey. 

"Well,  we  need  bread,  but  if  I  can't  have  that  I'll  take  tobacco."" 

One  day  a  solemn  and  religious  Danbury  man  hailed  a  charcoal 
peddler  with  the  query  : 

"  Have  you  got  charcoal  in  your  wagon  ?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  expectant  driver,  stopping  his  horses. 

"  That's  right,"  observed  the  religious  man  with  an  approving, 
nod,  "always  tell  the  truth  and  people  will  respect  you." 

And  then  he  closed  the  door  just  in  time  to  escape  a  brick  hurled 
by  the  wicked  peddler. 

"  Speaking  of  lazy  men,"  said  Mr.  Bailey,  "  we  have  a  man  in 
Danbury  so  lazy  that  instead  of  shoveling  a  path  to  the  front  gate 
he  pinches  the  baby's  ear  with  the  nippers  till  the  neighbors  come 
rushing  in  to  tread  down  the  snow." 

A  Danbury  man  was  bargaining  for  a  house  of  old  McMastersy 
and  asked  him  if  the  house  was  cold. 


240  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Cold,"  said  the  old  man,  cautiously,  "  I  can't  say  as  to  that,  it 
stands  out  doors." 

Speaking  of  the  Indian  raids,  says  Bailey  :  "  The  Modocs  have 
made  another  raid  on  our  people,  and  murdered  them.  If  ever  our 
government  gets  hold  of  these  savages,  gets  them  right  where  they 
can  not  escape,  gets  them  wholly  into  its  clutches — some  contractor 
will  make  money." 

Mr.  Bailey's  humor  also  consists  in  truthful  descriptions  of 
domestic  life.  His  descriptions  are  so  true  that  they  are  absolutely 
photographed  on  the  mind  of  the  reader.  He  can  close  his  eyes  and 
see  with  his  mind's  eye  the  very  scenes  depicted. 

In  this  paragraph  on  the  wheelbarrow  you  can  see  the  wheel- 
barrow as  plainly  as  if  it  were  painted  on  canvas. 

Says  Mr.  Bailey : 

If  you  have  occasion  to  use  a  wheelbarrow,  leave  it,  when  you  are  through  with 
it,  in  front  of  the  house  with  the  handles  towards  the  door.  A  wheelbarrow  is  the 
most  complicated  thing  to  fall  over  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  A  man  will  fall  over 
one  when  he  would  never  think  of  falling  over  any  thing  else.  He  never  knows 
when  he  has  got  through  falling  over  it,  either;  for  it  will  tangle  his  legs  and  his 
arms,  turn  over  with  him  and  rear  up  in  front  of  him,  and  just  as  he  pauses  in  his 
profanity  to  congratulate  himself,  it  takes  a  new  turn,  and  scoops  more  skin  off  of 
him,  and  he  commences  to  evolute  anew,  and  bump  himself  on  fresh  places.  A  man 
never  ceases  to  fall  over  a  wheelbarrow  until  it  turns  completely  on  its  back,  or  brings 
up  against  something  it  can  not  upset.  It  is  the  most  inoffensive  looking  object 
there  is,  but  it  is  more  dangerous  than  a  locomotive,  and  no  man  is  secure  with  one 
unless  he  has  a  tight  hold  of  its  handles  and  is  sitting  down  on  something.  A  wheel- 
barrow has  its  uses,  without  doubt,  but  in  its  leisure  moments  it  is  the  great  blight- 
ing curse  on  true  dignity. 

When  I  asked  Mr.  Bailey  what  was  the  funniest  incident  he  ever 
saw,  he  said : 

I  was  on  the  train  the  other  day  going  to  New  York.  As  the  train  stopped  at 
Stamford,  an  antique-looking  dame  thrust  her  head  out  of  the  window  opposite  the 
refreshment  room  door,  and  shouted, 

• ' Sonny ! " 

A  bright-looking  boy  came  up  to  the  window. 

"  Little  boy,"  said  she,  "have  you  a  mother?  " 

"Yes,  ma'am." 

"  Do  you  love  her?  " 

"  Yes,  ma'am." 

"  Do  you  go  to  school?  " 

"Yes,  ma'am." 

"  And  are  you  faithful  to  your  studies?  " 

"Yes,  ma'am." 


CAN  I  TRUST  YOU  TO  DO  AN  ERRAND  FOR  ME? 


oee  page  241- 


THE  D ANBURY  NEWS  MAN.  241 

'  Do  you  say  your  prayers  every  night?  " 
'Yes,  ma'am." 

'  Can  I  trust  you  to  do  an  errand  for  me?  " 
'  Yes,  ma'am." 

'  I  think  I  can  too;"  said  the  lady,  looking  steadily  down  on  the  manly  face. 
"Here is  five  cents  to  get  me  an  apple.    Remember  God  sees  you." 

"  Speaking  of  good  stories,  what  is  the  best  thing  that  ever  really 
occurred  in  Danbury  ? "  I  asked. 

"It  was  this  way:  One  of  our  school  committee-men,  Eben 
Tower,  was  to  visit  the  Danbury  school.  That  he  might  make  a 
good  appearance,  his  wife,  the  day  before,  mended  his  trousers  and 
accidently  left  the  needle  in  the  seat  of  the  garment. 

"  When  Eben  arrived  at  the  school,  he  stiffly  returned  the  salu- 
tation of  the  polite  teacher,  and  majestically  settled  into  the  '  com- 
pany chair.'  It  didn't  seem  to  the  most  acute  observer  that  he  had 
but  just  touched  the  chair,  when  he  at  once  began  to  ascend.  A 
wave  of  perplexed  pain  passed  over  his  face,  as  his  hand  soothingly 
parted  his  coat  tails. 

" '  Perhaps  you  prefer  an  arm  chair,'  said  the  teacher,  blandly. 

" l  Yes,  I  never  could  sit  in  a  cane  seat.' 

"A  wooden  chair  was  at  once  offered  him,  into  which  he 
dropped  almost  as  swiftly  as  he  got  out  of  it  again. 

"  'Any  thing  the  matter  ? '  asked  the  teacher,  as  the  old  man 
stood  on  his  feet  with  a  red  face  and  an  unnatural  fire  in  his  eye. 

" '  Any  thing  the  matter ! '  he  shouted,  as  he  shook  his  fist  angrily 
at  vacancy.  'Any  thing  the  matter !  Yes,  there  is.  Gimme  my 
hat;'  and  as  he  danced  toward  the  door  he  shouted  back, '  school 
or  no  school,  I  kin  whip  the  pewserlanermus  boy  what  stuck  the  pin 
in  them  cheers.' 

" '  Lor,  Eben ! '  exclaimed  his  wife,  as  he  tore  into  the  house, 
1  what's  the  matter  with  you  ? ' 

"  '  Matter ! '  shouted  the  infuriated  man,  as  he  snatched  off  his 
coat  and  flung  it  out  of  the  window.  'I  have  been  made  the  fool  of 
the  entire  district  by  that  sneakin'  teacher,'  and  his  Sunday  hat  flew 
through  another  window.  'Pins  stuck  into  my  cheer  as  I  was 
a-settin'  down  as  onsuspishus  like  as  I  am  a-settin'  down  now  in  my 
own — 

"  '  Lucretia ! '  he  ominously  howled,  as  he  sprung  out  of  that  chair, 
and  spasmodically  went  for  the  wounded  part  with  both  hands, 
'  you're  foolin'  with  your  best  friend  now,  and  he  ain't  in  the  humor 
to  stand  the  triflin'.' 


242 


KINGS  OF  THE!  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


11  In  an  instant  it  flashed  into  the  good  lady's  mind  what  the 
trouble  really  was.  In  the  next  instant  Eben's  nether  garment  was 
over  her  arm,  and  there — there  in  the  midst  of  the  repairs  glistened 
the  source  of  all  the  annoyance. 

"The  unfortunate  man  gave  one  brief  stare  at  the  evil  thing,  and 
falteringly  remarked,  as  he  thought  of  the  future,  'I'd  agi'n  twenty 
dollars,  Lucretia,  if  you  hadn't  found  it'." 


DANBURY  NEWS  MAN'S  LECTURE. 

Mr.  Bailey  sent  the  following  letter  with  the  MSS.  of  his  lecture, 
"England  from  a  Back  Window:" 


#• 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — Being  of  a  confiding  nature  and  brought  up 
amid  the  simple  influences  of  a  country  village,  my  friends  have  feared 
that  in  this  lecture  experiment  I  might  become  too  communicative,  and 
say  things  that  had  better  be  left  unsaid.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  being 


THE  DANE  UR  7  -NEWS  MAN.  243 

too  communicative,  you  know.  I  have  an  illustration  in  view.  There 
is  no  object  so  capable  of  inundating  the  human  system  with  the  two 
extremes  of  joy  and  anguish  as  a  shingle.  Balance  a  shingle  on  a  brick; 
put  a  lump  of  mud  on  one  end  and  violently  strike  the  other  with  a  rock, 
and  the  mud  immediately  begins  to  climb  up  the  infinitude  of  space. 
Split  a  shingle  a  part  of  its  length,  get  the  dog  next  door  to  back  into  the 
opening,  and  an  effect  is  produced  which  will  arouse  an  entire  commun- 
ity to  a  clearer  conception  of  the  realities  of  life. 

Of  the  agony  a  shingle  can  impart,  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  speak. 
There  are  some  things  too  sacred  to  drag  before  a  public  assembly. 

JSTow  there  is  not  a  shingle  in  all  England.  An  American  with  one 
bunch  of  shingles  and  a  change  of  clothing  might  travel  all  over  Britain 
without  a  penny  expense.  As  there  are  no  shingles,  so,  also,  there  is  not 
a  wooden  dwelling  in  England.  This  fact  placed  a  Manchester  gentle- 
men in  a  rather  embarrassing  position.  He  had  sojourned  in  the  States 
several  years,  and  returned  to  his  native  land  fully  primed  with  valuable 
information.  [Laughter.]  Several  nights  after,  while  entertaining  a 
few  friends  in  the  private  bar-parlor  of  the  White  Horse  Tavern,  he  ven- 
tured on  the  astounding  assertion  that,  while  in  America,  he  had  seen  a 
building  moved,  and,  being  made  desperate  by  the  horrified  expression 
on  the  faces  of  his  companions  and  the  utter  impossibility  of  backing 
safely  out,  followed  up  the  sensation  by  recklessly  claiming  that  he  had 
seen  a  three-story  tenement  going  down  the  middle  of  a  street.  Imme- 
diately an  impressive  and  ominous  silence  fell  upon  the  auditors,  and 
presently  they  arose,  one  by  one,  and,  with  glances  of  significant  pity  on 
the  hardened  narrator,  moodily  retired  from  the  room,  leaving  him 
entirely  alone  with  his  seared  conscience.  The  last  one  to  leave  over- 
hauled his  predecessor  in  the  entry,  and  in  a  gloomy  whisper  observed 
that  "that  was  the  bloodiest  lie  he  had  ever  heard."  And  to  this  day 
that  returned  Englishman  is  eyed  with  suspicion. 

So  much  for  being  too  communicative. 

AVe  are  all  more  or  less  conceited  until  we  travel.  Our  own  insti- 
tutions and  customs  are  considered  the  best  until  we  have  had  opportunity 
to  compare  them  with  others.  And  yet,  travel  does  not  always  remove 
or  even  modify  prejudice.  People  who  run  through  a  foreign  country 
under  the  impression  that  their  own  land  is  immeasurably  superior  in 
every  respect — a  notion  they  express  on  all  occasions — can  not  hope  to 
get  a  very  clear  idea  of  that  country  or  of  those  who  inhabit  it.  Con- 
sequently, we  have  travelers'  stories  which  go  to  show  that  England  is 
principally  smoke  and  fog,  and  its  people  close-rnouthed,  surly  and 
selfish.  I  feel  safe  in  saying  that  of  every  one  hundred  Americans  who 


244  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

go  to  Europe,  ninety-five  stay  less  than  three  weeks  in  England,  while 
they  cheerfully  spend  months  on  the  continent. 

And  yet,  England,  with  the  wonderful  beauty  of  its  scenery,  the 
glory  of  its  charities,  the  whirl  of  its  dissipation,  the  value  of  its  history, 
and  the  hospitality  of  its  people,  outranks  any  nation  on  the  globe. 

A  newly  arrived  American  is  readily  recognized  in  England.  There 
is  so  much  of  him  [laughter]  that  he  can  easily  be  seen  on  the  darkest 
night.  He  feels  that  the  eyes  of  an  effete  monarchy — properly  shaded— 
are  upon  him;  that  his  coming  is  the  opportunity  of  a  lifetime  for  a 
down-trodden  people,  to  refresh  their  sight  with  a  free-born  citizen. 

While  I  am  upon  this  subject,  I  might  mention  that  the  English 
enjoy  a  few  mistaken  ideas  in  regard  to  us.  There  are  a  great  many 
things  they  do  not  understand,  although  I  think  I  detected  an  improve- 
ment after  my  arrival.  I  have  said  that  all  the  English  are  not  burly, 
self-containing  and  exclusive.  And  I  tried  to  show  those  with  whom  I 
came  in  contact  that  all  Americans  are  neither  boors  nor  assassins — the 
only  two  classes  many  of  the  British  seem  to  recognize  among  us.  It  is 
the  style  of  American  journalism  to  exaggerate,  I  am  pained  to  say. 
Another  sad  feature  is  jesting  on  tragic  subjects.  These  excesses  are 
readily  seized  upon  by  the  English  press,  and  the  incidents  sown  broad- 
cast among  their  people  as  illustrative  of  our  character.  It  is  the  mis- 
fortune of  the  English  not  to  understand  an  American  joke.  I  had 
a  painful  evidence  of  that  while  conversing  with  a  fellow-countryman 
in  the  coffee  room  of  a  London  hotel.  He  spoke  to  me  of  the  great 
number  of  bow-legged  people  he  had  met  in  England,  and  asked  what 
was,  in  my  opinion,  the  cause.  I  told  him  it  must  have  resulted  from 
their  standing  too  long  at  a  time,  contemplating  their  national  debt. 
Whereupon  an  English  gentleman  sitting  near  said: 

"And  aren't  there  many  bow-legged  people  in  your  country?*' 

"No,  sir." 

"Perhaps  your  national  debt  is  so  large  your  people  don't  have  to 
stand  up  to  see  it,"  he  suggested.  We  made  no  reply.  He  got  from 
humor  right  down  to  solid  facts.  We  saw  he  did  not  understand  Amer- 
ican humor. 

Whatever  the  English  may  believe  of  our  manners  and  customs, 
many  of  them  have  ennobling  ideas  of  money-making  in  the  States. 
Numbers  have  come  here  with  a  view  to  making  a  fortune  in  a  few 
years,  and  to  return  to  live  in  a  castle  with  hot  and  cold  water  on  every 
floor.  When  in  Elston,  the  birthplace  of  Bunyan,  I  sought  to  glean 
some  local  traditions  of  the  great  preacher.  But  the  old  people  with 
whom  I  talked  knew  nothing  but  Canada.  Fifteen  years  before  some 


THE  DANE UR Y  NEWS  MAN.  245 

one  had  gone  to  Canada  from  Elston,  with  scarcely  a  shilling  in  his 
pocket,  and  had  now  returned  worth  $65,000.  These  aged  citizens  had 
no  special  feeling  against  Bunyan,  but  they  thought  the  time  could  be 
more  profitably  employed  in  talking  about  Canada.  They  never  lived 
so  close  to  Canada  as  I  have. 

Of  the  extent  of  the  United  States,  these  people  are  not  able  to  grasp 
a  proper  conception.  They  cannot  be  made  to  realize  that  Canada  is  not 
concealed  somewhere  within  the  States,  and  one  of  them  once  asked  me 
how  far  Massachusetts  was  from  Central  Park.  An  English  friend 
observing  an  American  family  stopping  at  our  hotel,  said  to  me: 

"Do  you  know  the  Fergusons  ?" 

"No." 

11  Why,  how's  that?"  he  inquired  in  some  surprise;  "they  come  from 
America!" 

I  was  obliged  to  confess  that  there  were  some  two  or  three  families 
in  America,  besides  the  Fergusons,  with  whom  I  was  not  personally 
acquainted. 

They  call  Michigan,  Mitchy-gin,  and  Connecticut,  Connectty-cut. 
But  the  name  of  Chicago  is  their  chief  recreation.  Even  the  dreadful  fire- 
fiend  was  more  merciful  than  are  they.  With  exasperating  complacency 
they  denominate  it  Cthi-ka-go,  Cthi-cog-o,  Chick-a-go,  Chee-a-go;  but 
the  favorite  rendering  is  Shee-caggy.  Several  Englishmen  assured  me 
they  had  been  as  far  West  as  Shee-caggy.  [Laughter.] 

Our  mixed  liquors  and  slang  are  never  failing  objects  of  interest  to 
them.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  I  was  not  better  qualified  to  give  them 
the  desired  information  about  them.  [Laughter.]  How  they  would  revel 
in  the  information  of  an  editor  fresh  from  one  of  our  city  dailies.  [Laugh- 
ter.] They  asked  me  if  there  were  such  drinks  as  brandy-smashes,  claret- 
punches  and  gin-slings,  and  when  I  told  them  that  I  did  not  know  for 
certain,  but  thought  I  had  heard  those  things  mentioned  by  worldly 
people  in  the  States,  they  have  said: 

"  Ah !  how  wonderful ! " 

I  hope  I  have  not  deceived  those  people. 

But  when  they  pressed  me  to  tell  them  why  Americans  called  some 
of  their  drinks  "coffin-makers,"  "soul-destroyers,"  "nose-painters," 
and  "  dead-shots,"  I  felt  compelled  to  admit  that  I  never  before  heard 
the  terms;  and  then  they  were  disappointed. 

England  is  made  up  of  Englishmen,  Americans  and  foreigners,  and 
the  last  named  are  so  scarce  as  to  be  immediately  noticeable.  [Laugh- 
ter.] You  do  not  see  there  an  English  builder  with  German  workmen 
and  Irish  servants.  The  merchants,  manufacturers  and  business  men, 


246  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  ANI>  PULPIT. 

generally,  are  English;  their  employees  are  English;  the  coachmen  are 
English,  the  porters  and  laborers  are  English,  the  servant  girls  are  Eng- 
lish, and  so  are  the  newsboys,  bootblacks,  and  gamins  generally.  Wher- 
ever you  turn,  you  see  English,  English,  English! 

It  is  an  imposing  spectacle.  Broad  jaws,  sloping  shoulders,  red 
cheeks,  flaxen  hair,  side-whiskers,  gaiters,  round  sack-coats,  stiff  hats, 
canes,  umbrellas  and  eye-glasses.  All  English. 

More  noticeable  than  all  other  Englishmen  is  the  London  boy.  I 
never  tired  while  studying  the  London  boy.  There  is  so  much  of  him, 
not  individually,  but  collectively.  Individually  he  is  slim  in  body, 
with  generally  a  white,  unhealthy  face,  spindling  legs,  and  rather  nar- 
row back  of  the  head.  He  wears  trousers  tight  to  his  shrinking  shanks, 
and  a  cap  which  makes  him  look  like  an  orphan  boarding  with  a  maiden 
aunt.  He  is  a  poor  boy,  without  doubt,  always  on  the  street,  and 
always  in  the  way.  I  never  saw  such  a  boy  elsewhere.  He  is  not 
quarrelsome,  not  saucy,  not  addicted  to  smoking,  and  never  profane, 
even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances.  He  is  a  helpless  youth, 
with  a  stony  stare  levelled  into  shop  windows,  and  when  not  thus 
engaged  he  is  rubbing  up  against  the  buildings  or  toppling  over  obstruc- 
tions. He  has  a  dreadful  tendency  to  be  always  backing  up  against 
something,  and  to  be  always  missing  it,  to  the  detriment  of  his  bones. 
Only  they  do  not  fall  with  sufficient  force  to  break  a  bone.  I  have  seen 
one  of  them  slide  from  a  lamp  post,  turn  a  part  somersault,  recover  him- 
self, hit  up  against  the  post  again,  slip  off  the  curb,  and  gradually  get 
down  on  his  back  in  the  gutter— taking  in  all  some  nine  seconds  to  do 
it — while  an  American  boy  would  go  down  like  a  flash,  stave  a  hole  in 
the  back  of  his  head,  and  make  a  doctor's  bill  of  eighteen  dollars,  in 
less  than  a  second.  [Laughter.] 

But  the  English  are  all  so  conservative. 

There  is  one  thing  I  must  tell  you  before  proceeding  farther.  I  dis- 
like to  deceive  people.  And  yet  I  am  constantly  in  danger  of  doing  it. 
No  one  to  see  me  would  doubt  for  an  instant  that  I  had  beheld  Queen 
Victoria.  This  makes  me  sad,  because  I  did  not  see  her.  It  is  a  humili- 
ating confession,  but  I  am  too  honest  to  conceal  it.  I  thought  but 
little,  indeed,  of  this  disappointment  when  I  was  in  England,  but  on 
returning  home  I  was  made  to  see  the  dreadful  mistake  I  had  been 
guilty  of.  I  was  made  to  understand  what  a  sickening  failure  the 
whole  trip  had  been.  I  have  had  men  come  to  me  with  a  glad  light  in 
their  eyes  to  ask  about  the  Queen,  and  when  I  have  told  them  that  I 
never  beheld  her  I  have  seen  them  reel  from  my  presence  with  blanched 
faces  and  quivering  lips  like  men  stricken  with  a  sudden  pestilence. 


THE  DANE  UR Y  NEWS  MAN.  24? 

But  I  could  not  help  it.  These  people  do  not  seem  to  understand  what 
a  rare  being  the  Queen  is.  I  neither  wish  to  misrepresent  nor  malign 
them,  but  they  imagine  the  Queen  is  to  be  casually  met  with  on  the 
promenade,  at  the  post-office,  or  in  the  ice-cream  saloon.  This  is  not 
so.  The  Queen  of  England  is  almost  as  secluded  from  public  view  as  if 
she  had  been  driven  into  the  earth  by  a  steam  hammer.  It  is  natural,  I 
presume,  for  our  people  to  desire  to  see  royalty.  Americans  abroad 
have  an  unquenchable  longing  to  look  with  their  own  eyes  upon  a  member 
of  the  royal  family.  It  is  not  to  admire  them,  that  we  have  this  wish,  but 
we  want  to  abhor  them.  [Laughter.]  I  think  this  is  the  feeling.  I 
made  many  efforts  to  get  at  the  royal  family  to  abhor  them,  before  suc- 
cess crowned  my  efforts.  I  have  gone  a  hundred  miles  to  abhor  a  single 
member  of  the  Queen's  household. 

There  are  but  few  advantages  to  the  many  drawbacks  in  being  royal. 
The  Queen  goes  nowhere  really.  She  is  the  ruler  of  England,  but  there 
are  hundreds  of  streets  in  her  own  city  of  London  which  she  never  saw. 
How  much  she  has  read  of  the  gayety  of  the  water  ing  places,  and  how  much 
sighed  for  just  one  glimpse!  How  frequently  she  has  been  told  of  the 
excitement  of  the  Derby  day,  the  exhilaration  of  a  ride  on  top  of  a  stage- 
coach, the  fascination  of  a  circus,  the  glory  of  the  ballet,  the  comfort  of 
old  inns,  the  hilarity  of  a  country  fair,  the  glitter  and  charm  of  the 
lighted  shops,  the  wonders  of  tha  underground  railway,  the  delight  of  a 
soda-water  fountain  in  full  blast,  and  many,  many  other  things  which 
the  commonest  subject  enjoys,  but  which  she  is  eternally  shut  out  from. 
She  has  her  palace  and  her  walled-in  garden,  and  standing  there  she  can 
say  to  the  people  of  London, 

"  Here  you  can  not  come!" 

But  they  with  their  miles  of  streets,  and  multitude  of  glories  can  jaw 
back  to  their  queen, 

"  Here  you  can't  come! " 

This  is  strictly  confidential.  I  never  went  by  that  castle  wall  with- 
out thinking  there  were  just  as  envious  eyes  on  one  side  as  on  the  other; 
but  I  never  spoke  of  it,  as  I  did  not  wish  to  make  trouble. 

She  can  walk  there  as  much  as  she  likes,  and  by  herself.  But  there 
is  no  swapping  gossip  and  preserve  recipes  over  the  gate  with  the  woman 
in  the  next  house.  [Laughter.]  Nor  a  run  out  in  the  afternoon  to  see 
a  neighbor's  new  shawl,  and  to  show  her  own.  What  does  she  know  of 
the  exquisite  pleasure  of  badgering  a  shop-keeper  into  lunacy?  Or  of 
the  subtle  excitement  of  hoarding  up  old  rags  to  exchange  for  new  tin- 
ware? [Laughter.] 

There  was  no  opportunity  to  get  inside  of  Buckingham  Palace — the 
Queen's  city  residence — an  unpretentious  four-story  building,  so  I  used 


248  RINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

to  content  myself  standing  in  front  of  it,  admiring  the  coat  of  arms  over 
the  gateway.  It  was  the  English  coat  of  arms,  a  lion  and  a  unicorn 
standing  on  their  hind  legs  squaring  off  at  each  other.  It  was  a  very 
attractive  object  to  me.  I  have  stood  before  it  hours  at  a  time,  lost  in  a 
trance  of  delight.  The  lion  had  a  smile  on  his  face.  He  was  the  first 
lion  I  ever  saw  laugh.  I  have  seen  thousands  of  these  coats  of  arms,  but 
never  saw  a  sedate  lion  among  them.  He  is  always  laughing  as  if  it 
was  the  best  joke  he  ever  heard  of,  being  matched  against  a  unicorn  with 
a  barber  pole  between  its  eyes.  And  it  is  absurd  when  you  come  to 
think  of  it;  for  a  lion  could  whip  a  unicorn  around  a  stump,  and  have 
its  barber  pole  in  front  of  a  millinery  shop  in  less  than  nine  seconds. 
You  can't  change  the  English  lion.  He  is  the  one  thing  all  the  time. 
But  you  can  change  an  American  eagle,  [laughter]  if  you  are  not  con- 
nected with  the  press. 

But  I  like  to  see  a  lion  look  pleased.  I  think  we  were  all  intended 
to  be  happy.  A  lion  that  won't  laugh  is  no  society  for  me.  [Laughter.  ] 

I  had  all  along  been  anxious  to  revel  in  rural  England.  There  was, 
however,  one  slight  drawback  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  scheme. 
"When  I  told  a  London  friend  that  I  proposed  going  into  the  farming 
region  and  mixing  with  its  people,  to  see  what  they  did  and  how  they 
did  it,  he  gravely  shook  his  head. 

"  The  English  farmer/' said  he,  "is  a  fine  specimen  of  perverse  human- 
ity. He  is  reticent,  suspicious,  jealous.  Our  farming  country  is  divided 
into  the  large  estates  of  noblemen  and  gentry.  These  estates  are  sub- 
divided into  farms  and  rented  to  the  men  who  form  an  important  class 
in  England.  They  hold  the  possession  of  their  lands  by  good  behavior; 
and  it  is  the  tenant's  ambition  to  keep  his  place  all  his  life,  and  at  his 
death  to  leave  it  to  his  oldest  son.  Many  of  the  present  possessors  of 
farms  were  born  on  them,  as  were  their  fathers.  It  is  not  only  their 
home,  but  their  ancestral  hall,  and  they  guard  it  with  jealous  care 
against  the  advances  of  rivals.  Many  a  man  has  lost  his  farm  through 
some  indiscreet  remark  made  in  the  presence  of  a  neighbor,  who  coveted 
the  place;  and  who  lost  no  time  in  creating  an  unfavorable  impression 
of  him  at  headquarters.  Then,  again,  as  his  farm  is  not  his  own,  but 
always,  so  to  speak,  in  the  market,  he  is  careful  to  keep  the  proceeds 
from  it  a  secret,  so,  if  he  is  doing  well  no  neighbor  will  strive  to  get  his 
farm  by  bidding  higher,  and  thus  increase  the  price  of  his  rent  to 
retain  it.  There  are  other  things,  perhaps,  which  I  do  not  understand, 
that  go  to  make  the  English  farmer  tight-headed;  and,  while  I  am  quite 
certainn  one  of  them  will  treat  you  disrespectfully,  yet  I  am  positive  you 


THE  DANE  UR  Y  NEWS  MAN.  249 

will  not  have  a  chance  to  go  over  their  farms,  or  mix  with  their  house- 
holds; and,  as  far  as  gaining  a  knowledge  of  them  is  concerned,  your 
mission  will  be  fruitless." 

Thus  my  London  friend  sketched  the  situation.  When  I  got  my  letters  of 
introduction  and  started  down  into  old  Norfolk,  I  made  about  as  gloomy 
a  procession  as  was  ever  precipitated  upon  that  blossoming  section  of 
England.  I  went  direct  to  the  ancient  town  of  Lynn,  and  even  if  I  were 
to  be  debarred  from  mingling  with  the  farmers,  I  had  a  flood  of  delight- 
ful sensations  in  the  quaint,  old  town — a  counterpart  of  scores  of  Eng- 
lish cities. 

An  English  town  is  not  so  cheerful  appearing  as  an  American  town. 
Ear  from  it.  There  are  no  wooden  buildings,  airily  constructed;  none 
painted  white,  with  green  blinds,  or  in  neutral  colors,  with  darker  shades 
for  trimmings;  no  front  yards  with  shrubs  and  turf;  the  residences,  like 
the  shops,  come  up  to  the  walk;  are  devoid  of  color,  except  the  dingy 
color  of  the  brick  or  stone  which  compose  them,  and  make  no  pretense 
whatever  to  architectural  display.  That  is  reserved  for  the  churches. 
There  are  exceptions  to  this  picture,  in  the  suburbs  of  some  of  the  towns, 
but  the  general  aspect  is  depressing  to  the  American  visitor.  Where 
there  is  not  the  wall  of  a  house  there  is  the  wall  of  a  garden,  and  so  ma- 
son-work faces  every  street,  and  the  walls  to  the  gardens  are  so  high  that 
no  man  could  look  over  them  to  see  whether  broken  crockery  or  pansies 
illumined  the  other  side.  There  are  no  trees  on  the  streets,  and  scarcely 
a  hitching  post.  The  sidewalks  are  generally  very  narrow,  and  irregular 
in  their  width,  but  the  streets  are,  in  all  cases,  finely  paved.  And  the 
people  quite  frequently  use  the  roadway  for  walking,  especially  when 
promenading.  The  High  street  of  a  country  town  on  a  Saturday  even- 
ing will  be  filled  with  people,  from  one  side  to  the  other,  with  not  a 
team  in  sight. 

The  country  towns  differ  from  London  in  one  very  noticeable  par- 
ticular. The  citizens  are  not  habituated  to  umbrellas.  Every  Londoner 
carries  his  umbrella — at  least,  until  some  American  gets  on  familiar  terms 
with  him.  [Laughter.]  He  would  as  soon  think  of  going  away  with- 
out the  back  of  his  head  as  without  his  umbrella.  It  is  his  constant  com- 
panion on  the  promenade,  in  church,  at  the  play,  business,  everywhere. 
He  doesn't  carry  it  because  he  has  a  special  fondness  for  it,  or  because  he 
Relieves  there  is  any  particular  virtue  in  its  possession.  But  he  carries  it 
because  it  is  a  habit,  and  he  could  no  sooner  break  from  it  than  he  could 
from  any  other  habit  once  fastened  to  him,  unless  he  should  carefully 
diet  himself,  and  consent  to  be  placed  under  a  physician's  care.  Which 
he  rarely  does.  He  paws  over  shop  goods  with  it,  sticks  it  into  pastry, 


250  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

and,  for  all  I  know  to  the  contrary,  pokes  it  into  the  ribs  of  dead  friends, 
to  see  what  they  died  of 

But  the  rural  man  seldom  carries  an  umbrella;  he  is  partial  to  a 
stick.  From  the  nobleman  down  to  what  is  expressively  called  a  clod- 
hopper, all  carry  sticks.  At  one  farmhouse  I  saw  no  less  than  twelve 
substantial  sticks  hung  up  in  the  hall.  They  were  used  by  the  farmer, 
and  in  looking  over  them  I  was  very  much  struck  by  a  remark  he  made. 
It  was  :  "I  must  be  having  a  new  stick  soon/' 

The  English  farmer  is  just  as  shrewd  and  sharp  as  his  Yankee 
brother,  but  he  is  far  more  conservative.  The  love  of  home  is  so  woven 
into  the  chords  of  his  heart  as  to  be  inseparable  from  them,  and  the 
family  homestead,  though  merely  his  by  sufferance,  becomes  sacred  in 
his  eyes.  To  the  oldest  son  he  gives  the  farm,  and  he,  in  turn,  gives  it 
to  his  oldest  son  ;  and  while  shops  and  mills  and  offices  are  filled,  still 
the  farm  is  kept  in  the  family  from  generation  to  generation.  This  ex- 
plains why  the  vast  estates  of  noblemen  have  remained  in  one  family 
since  the  days  of  the  Conqueror,  and  are  as  nearly  intact  to-day  as  when 
that  Norman  pirate  awarded  them  to  his  clamorous  rabble.  The 
oldest  son  takes  the  homestead,  and  the  brothers,  if  there  be  no  surplus 
of  property,  to  give  them  a  lift  in  life,  start  themselves,  or  work  for 
their  brother.  I  am  aware  that  much  can  be  said  against  this  peculiar 
division  of  property,  but  as  I  am  an  oldest  son  myself,  I  feel  rather 
delicate  about  saying  it.  There  is  this  much,  however,  in  its  favor,  the 
place  is  kept  in  the  family,  and  reaches  that  perfection  which  care  and 
time  invariably  bring  to  one  management.  The  man  who  has  been 
accustomed  from  infancy  to  one  arrangement  of  rooms  and  adornment, 
rarely  cares  to  make  a  change.  A  repair  is  made  here  and  there  as 
needed,  but  the  landlord  is  seldom  petitioned  to  pull  down  the  old 
house  and  erect  a  more  modern  one  in  its  place.  And  if  he  incurs  the 
expense  without  solicitation,  it  is  an  event  which  has  no  parallel. 

There  is  a  kitchen  in  one  of  those  old  farm  houses,  which  I  shall 
always  remember,  and  which  it  seemed  that  I  could  never  tire  looking 
at.  The  floor  was  of  red  tile,  worn  into  hollows  by  the  feet  of  genera- 
tions of  the  present  occupant's  family.  The  fire-place  was  a  marvel  of 
width.  The  andirons  which  stood  therein,  contained  almost  enough 
material  to  have  made  a  cookstove  with  ten  legs.  The  huge  mantel  shelf 
above  seemed  to  need  all  its  strength  to  hold  the  shining  brass  candle- 
sticks. Dried  vegetables  hung  in  festoons  from  the  whitewashed  beams 
of  the  ceiling.  The  windows  were  as  broad  as  they  were  high,  with  seats 
capacious  enough  to  have  accommodated  a  caucus  of  reformers.  The 
chairs  were  of  oak,  straight  in  the  legs  and  backs,  with  one  quaintly  carved 


THE  DANB  UR  Y  NEWS  MAN.  25 1 

so  as  to  press'pomegranates,  angelic  skulls  and  acorns  into  your  spine  as 
you  leaned  back  in  it.  And  when  the  huge  deal  table  was  set  out  for 
lunch,  with  a  great  round  of  roast  beef  in  the  center,  supported  by  a  full- 
chested  pitcher  of  foaming  ale,  the  advance  and  glory  of  the  nineteenth 
century  melted  away  from  both  sight  and  memory. 

But  they  needed  in  those  days  the  broad  window  benches  to  have 
courted  in.  There  were  then  no  mohair  sofas,  with  spiral  springs  run- 
ning up  through,  to  hold  you  on,  and  if  our  ancestors  had  depended 
strictly  upon  the  stiff,  ungainly  chairs  for  their  wooing,  this  world  of 
ours  would  to-day  be  for  rent.  The  Norfolk  parish  where  I  spent  so 
many  pleasant  days,  is  called  West  Winch,  and  is  owned  by  a  lord.  There 
are  only  forty  or  fifty  houses  in  the  parish,  nearly  all  occupied  by  farmers, 
and  yet  it  has  two  public  houses,  and  also  a  church  which  is  five  hundred 
years  old.  And  the  church  has  a  stone  coffin  from  the  Eoman  age. 
Nearly  all  the  parish  churches  have  one  or  more  of  these  coffins,  as  the 
churches  themselves  are  built  on  the  site  of  Roman  temples  or  burial 
places.  These  coffins  are  hollowed  from  oblong  blocks  of  stone,  and 
when  sealed  up  ready  for  business,  one  of  them  would  weigh  about  half 
a  ton.  To  be  a  pall-bearer  in  those  days,  must  have  been  a  rather  gloomy 
and  somber  undertaking. 

The  man  who  goes  to  England  and  neglects  to  devote  days  to  prowl- 
ing about  the  old  parish  churches  and  church-yards,  misses  a  genuine 
treat.  The  English  are  a  remarkably  conservative  people,  with  the 
bump  of  reverence  sorely  crowding  every  other  bump  on  their  heads. 
This  explains  why  they  keep  ruins,  why  old  customs  still  prevail,  why 
many  of  their  towns  are  so  little  changed,  and  why  they  worship  in  tem- 
ples wrinkled  and  scarred  by  age  and  the  elements. 

Many  of  these  churches,  although  over  five  centuries  old,  are  located 
in  parishes  numbering  scarcely  forty  houses.  The  people  treat  them 
with  great  care  and  keep  them  together  as  long  as  possible,  and,  when 
no  longer  possible,  they  use  them  as  ruins,  and  are  even  more  tender 
than  ever  witli  them.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  speak  of  their  composi- 
tion, or  architectural  features,  or  government — that  information  you 
can  find  in  correspondence  and  books.  But  there  are  some  peculiar 
features,  as  compared  with  our  churches,  on  which  I  hope  to  fix  your 
attention.  To  tell  the  truth  I  don't  cotton  much,  as  the  wordly 
minded  say,  to  ancient  church  architecture.  But  you  take  a  thorough- 
bred churchman,  and  he  will  spend  an  entire  day  with  one  church  and 
a  sandwich.  [Laughter.]  He  will  stand  for  one  whole  hour  before  a 
window,  and,  after  he  has  collected  his  senses,  will  discourse  fervently 
upon  the  sweep  of  its  arch,  the  delicacy  of  its  tracery  and  the  graceful- 
ness of  its  spandrils.  He  will  walk  thirty-two  times  around  an  ancient 


253       .  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

font  in  a  sort  of  ecstatic  blind-staggers,  and  I  could  cut  out  something 
equally  beautiful  from  a  bath-brick  with  a  jack-knife.  But  I  shall  not 
do  it.  Many  of  the  churches  are  very,  very  rusty  looking  affairs,  with 
plain  oaken  seats  and  blackened  pillars,  worried  by  worms  and  age,  and 
both  defaced  by  the  autographic  miscreant  from  America.  Then  there 
are,  in  some  instances,  most  wonderful  contrasts  between  the  building 
and  its  furniture. 

St.  PauFs  cathedral  in  London  is  a  noble  structure,  but  its  sittings 
are  common  wooden  benches  without  backs.  It  was  there  I  first  saw 
notices  on  the  walls  prohibiting  people  from  walking  about  during  the 
service.  In  an  American  meeting-house  no  such  notice  is  seen.  There, 
when  the  service  is  going  on,  no  one  thinks  of  strolling  about  the  room, 
for  every  American  meeting-house  has  a  solemn  deacon,  fifty-eight  years 
old,  with  steel  blue  eyes  and  a  beard  like  a  curry-comb,  alongside  of 
whom  the  famed  Spanish  inquisition  tones  down  to  a  mere  circus  per- 
formance. [Laughter.] 

Of  the  great  number  of  decayed  church  edifices  I  visited,  St.  Bar- 
tholomew in  London  bears  the  palm.  It  has  been  hacked  at  by  opposing 
religions  and  crumbled  by  the  elements  for  the  past  eight  hundred 
years.  But  it  has  its  congregation  and  its  service  every  Sunday. 
The  floor  is  broken,  the  pillars  which  sustain  the  roof  and  sepa- 
rate the  aisles  from  the  nave  are  worn  in  places  to  a  degree  calculated 
to  make  one  sitting  near  them  quite  nervous  and  thoughtful;  the 
walls  are  musty,  gashed  and  filled  with  doorways  with  no  stairs 
leading  to  them,  and  windows  nailed  up,  and  tombs  quaint,  stained  and 
mutilated.  Back  of  the  pulpit  were  several  stone  coffins,  whose  occu- 
pants left  centuries  ago  in  search  of  better  ventilation,  and  about  them 
a  ton  or  so  of  broken  stone-cornices,  window  frames  and  door  facings, 
carefully  hoarded  up  by  the  reverential  wardens. 

It  is  a  novel  sensation  experienced  by  an  American  on  visiting  this 
dingy,  broken- winded  fabric.  But  precious  few  Americans  visit  it,  how- 
ever, or  even  know  of  its  existence. 

"  Why  isn't  it  torn  down  at  once,  and  a  new  building  put  up  in  its 
place  ?"  you  ask. 

"Why  don't  you  tear  up  the  body  of  your  great-grandfather  from  its 
burial  place  and  put  down  a  new  body  in  its  stead?  But  perhaps  you 
never  thought  of  it.  But  it  can  be  done.  So  these  people  can  pull  down 
an  old  church  and  erect  another,  but  they  haven't  thought  of  it. 

When  one  of  our  home  churches  loses  a  couple  of  shingles  from  its 
roof,  or  a  figure  from  its  carpet,  or  the  first  tone  of  its  paint,  one  church 
meeting  follows  another,  former  friends  cease  to  exchange  greetings  or  to 


THE  DANBUR7  NEWS  MAN. 

borrow  from  each  other  a  cup  of  sugar  until  Henry  gets  home  from 
school,  and  picnics  are  given  up,  and  brotherly  love  suspended,  until 
the  point  is  carried,  the  repair  made,  and  a  debt  incurred.  [Laughter.] 
But  here  is  a  church  which  for  five  hundred  years  has  been  in  a  condi- 
tion to  get  the  whole  congregation  by  the  ears,  and  to  send  the  entire 
parish  to  the  devil,  but  the  people  go  patiently  along,  raising  a  little 
money  here  and  a  little  there,  and  using  it,  as  they  get  it,  to  replace  a 
stone  or  prop  up  a  pillar,  and  the  following  Sunday  they  drop  quietly  in 
and  sit  for  an  hour  on  a  hard  bench  worshiping  God,  and  admiring  the 
improvement.  [Laughter.] 

No  carpet  is  used.  Blank  stone  floors  are  what  the  English  delight 
in  for  their  churches.  A  stone  floor  is  not  so  sightly  or  comfortable  as 
one  carpeted,  but  it  is  better  adapted  to  burying  people  beneath.  They 
might  be  planted  under  a  carpet,  I  suppose,  but  it  wouldn't  be  so  pleas- 
ant. Some  of  the  churches  have  floors  of  brilliantly  colored  tile,  which 
are  very  pretty,  and  might  answer,  perhaps,  the  natural  craving  in  this 
country  for  a  carpet,  but  with  snow  on  the  heel  of  the  incoming  wor- 
shiper the  result  would  be  most  disastrous  to  the  first  half-dozen  pewa 
from  the  door,  I'm  afraid. 

The  English  combine  economy  with  grief,  and  come  as  near  to  kill- 
ing two  birds  with  one  stone  as  you  ever  see  done.  By  burying  their 
dead  within  the  building  they  secure  both  floor  and  tomb  in  one.  In 
some  of  the  very  old  churches,  like  Westminster  Abbey,  for  instance,, 
the  dead  are  rather  promiscuously  scattered  about.  There  will  b» 
fathers  in  the  porch,  mothers  in  the  aisles,  uncles  and  aunts  in. 
the  transept,  with  cousins  and  grandmothers  under  the  seats.. 
[Laughter.]  I  got  up  from  listening  to  a  service  in  Westminster, 
one  morning,  and  found  that  I  had  been  sitting  on  an  entire  fam- 
ily. [Laughter.]  At  a  very  old  church  in  Derbyshire  the  flagging  of 
the  walk  leading  from  the  gate  to  the  porch  is  a'succession  of  memori- 
als to  the  dead  resting  beneath.  In  Ireland  are  graveyards  located  oa 
desolate  looking  islands,  graveyards  without  the  vestige  of  an  inclosure, 
or  with  scarcely  the  vestige  of  a  stone.  They  are  the  sites  of  old  temples, 
which  centuries  ago  passed  to  ruin,  but  the  places  have  been  conse- 
crated as  places  for  burial,  and  will  be  used  as  such  as  long  as  there  is  a 
physician  in  practice.  [Laughter.]  The  British  can  make  a  graveyard  go 
farther  than  we  can.  [Laughter.]  They  have  plenty  of  them  five  and  six. 
hundred  years  old.  But  in  America  as  soon  as  a  graveyard  becomes  a 
little  old  it  is  dug  up  and  a  new  street  put  down  in  its  place.  [Laughter] 
Several  years  later  some  one  comes  along,  and  wants  his  wife's  uncle- 
who  had  been  laid  there.  No  one  knows  what  has  become  of  the  old 


254  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

gentleman,  but  everybody,  tries  to  pacify  the  grief-stricken  nephew,  but 
he  won't  be  comforted.  He  dances  around  and  demands  his  uncle,  and 
finally  drags  the  town  into  a  lawsuit. 

There  is  a  chapel  in  Norfolk  which  historically  amounts  to  nothing, 
but  which  has  been  saved  from  going  down  to  oblivion  by  the  enterprise 
of  its  present  rector.  The  dead  in  the  churchyard  were  irregularly 
buried,  as  must  necessarily  follow  four  hundred  years  of  interment  in  a 
one-acre  lot.  So  the  different  grave  stones  presented  a  very  broken 
front  to  the  eye,  from  whichever  way  viewed.  The  rector  was  dis- 
pleased with  that.  He  said  harmony  was  one  of  the  chief  objects  of 
life,  and,  to  produce  a  little  of  the  chief  object,  he  pulled  up  the  grave 
stones  and  set  them  out  in  symmetrical  rows.  They  look  very  pretty 
now,  but  as  the  signs  were  put  up  without  regard  to  the  location  of  the 
parties  who  had  done  business  beneath  them,  the  effect  is  not  exactly 
picturesque  upon  the  minds  of  the  survivors.  In  fact,  they  don't  know 
where  to  look  for  their  dead,  but  have  to  drop  the  sad  tear  at  random. 
This  is  unpleasant  to  the  friends,  and  must  be  somewhat  embarrassing  to 
the  deceased.  But  one  of  the  chief  objects  of  life  is  gained. 

But  I  was  speaking  of  farming. 

My  friend  has  two  hundred  acres  in  his  farm.  He  had  the  most  of 
it  in  wheat.  It  is  a  singular  feature  of  the  English  climate,  that,  while 
its  grain  is  above  ground  when  the  soil  of  New  England  has  not  yet 
escaped  the  fetters  of  frost,  yet  the  harvest  is  no  earlier.  My  friend  had 
in  his  employ  four  men  and  two  boys.  They  are  the  farm  laborers 
which  we  hear  so  much  about,  through  Mr.  Arch  and  other  agitators. 
I  am  not  qualified  to  discuss  the  English  farm  labor  question.  There  is, 
perhaps,  much  to  be  said  on  both  sides,  which  is  never  heard.  The 
laborers  support  themselves  and  pay  their  own  rent,  living  in  little  stone 
cottages  near  to  the  farm — cottages  which  the  owner  of  the  estates 
erected  for  the  purpose.  The  wages  which  they  aspire  to,  and  which, 
in  some  sections,  is  paid,  is  $3.75  a  week.  There  are  places  where  the 
pay  is  but  12.25  a  week.  In  busy  seasons  the  wife,  and  those  of  the 
children  old  enough,  go  into  the  field.  Some  of  the  laborers  with  an 
income  of  less  than  three  dollars  a  week,  support  a  family  of  four  or  five. 
Awful,  isn't  it  ?  But  before  our  war  the  wages  paid  to  a  laborer  here 
was,  at  the  highest,  one  dollar  a  day,  and  I  remember  one  who  sustained 
a  family  of  five  on  seventy-five  cents  a  day,  and  got  comfortably  drunk 
every  Saturday  night,  too.  And  he  paid  more  for  his  clothing  than 
does  his  English  brother,  and  it  wore  him  a  much  less  time.  It  is  not 
unusual  for  a  pair  of  English  made  shoes  to  last  two  years,  and  a  pair 
of  corduroy  trousers  to  wear  five  years,  and  the  latter  can  be  bought  for 


THE  DANBV3Y  NEWS  MAN.  255 

less  than  two  dollars.  I  do  not  wish  to  defend  the  system  of  farm  wages 
in  England;  neither  is  it  my  object  to  drive  -the  poor  and  helpless  into 
corduroy  breeches.  I  think  the  farmers  should  pay  their  help  all  they 
can,  and  I  hesitate  to  attack  them  for  fear  that  they  do.  It  is  said,  and 
I  have  no  reason  to  doubt  it,  that  many  of  the  farm  laborers  do  not 
touch  a  mouthful  of  meat  from  one  year's  end  to  the  other.  But  they 
get  along  very  well  without  it.  I  have  seen  hundreds  of  them  and  their 
families,  and  a  redder-cheeked,  brighter-eyed  people,  I  never  saw — even 
in  a  hotel  where  there  is  plenty  of  meat. 

They  have  roses  on  the  walls  of  their  cottages,  of  course;  they  smoke, 
and  are  even  beginning  to  take  in  the  god-like  sensations  of  chewing; 
and  they  have  their  beer  daily.  If  they  prefer  beer  to  beef  whose  busi- 
ness is  it?  They  pay  less  rent  than  does  the  American  fellow  who 
lives  by  himself.  Twenty  dollars  a  year  is  the  highest,  I  believe.  There 
are  sections  where  the  benevolent  wealthy  have  erected  model  cottages 
at  a  still  less  rent.  On  the  estate  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  at  Sandring- 
ham,  there  are  quite  a  number  of  these  cottages,  of  Gothic  pattern,  con- 
taining four  or  five  rooms,  and  having  a  bit  of  garden  attached.  The  rent 
is  fifteen  dollars  per  annum.  This  is  in  surly,  downtrodden  over-ruled 
England,  and  not  in  free  and  enlightened  America.  They  are  very  pretty 
cottages,  well- ventilated  and  free  from  lightning  rods.  In  fact,  there 
are  precious  few  lightning  rods  in  all  England,  which  is  due,  perhaps, 
to  the  English  people's  horror  of  a  thunder  storm  which  they  are  always 
careful  to  speak  of  in  terms  of  the  greatest  respect,  calling  it  a  tempest. 

In  discussing  the  relative  wages  paid  the  workmen  of  the  two  coun- 
tries, it  is  well  to  consider  the  sort  of  equivalent  they  give  for  their  pay. 
I  contend  that  the  American  works  the  harder  of  the  two.  If  he  is  on 
a  farm  he  must  be  up  and  choring  around  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  he  has  but  little  relief  until  eight  or  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening. 
He  boards  with  the  farmer  who  sends  him  to  bed  when  there  is  nothing 
for  him  to  do,  and  drags  him  out  again  as  soon  as  it  is  light  enough  to 
see  the  shortest  way  into  his  clothes.  And  during  the  day  he  works 
like  a  steam  saw-mill,  spurred  up,  not  by  beer,  but  by  an  Egyptian 
task-master,  who  works  like  a  lunatic  himself,  and  can  not  be  made  to 
understand  why  every  body  about  him  should  not  do  the  same.  I  have 
been  there  myself.  If  he  is  a  mechanic,  and  does  not  do  a  reasonable 
amount  of  work  in  the  hours,  he  is  discharged,  and  subsequently  starts 
a  saloon. 

The  English  farm  laborer  gets  to  work  at  6  A.  M.  and  quits  at  6 
P.  M.  On  one  farm  I  visited,  the  men  went  to  work  at  eight  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  quit  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon.  The  farmer  himself  does 
17 


256  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

but  little  work  aside  from  riding  about,  going  to  market,  and  looking 
after  the  stock.  Consequently  the  laborer,  in  the  absence  of  a  stimu- 
lating example,  is  inclined  to  establish  his  own  pace.  It  is  not  a  violently 
swift  one.  In  many  of  the  districts  there  is  a  piece  of  land  divided  up 
into  what  are  called  allotments,  and  each  laborer  can  have  an  allotment 
(about  a  rood)  to  cultivate  for  himself  by  the  payment  of  from  $1.25  to 
$2.50  a  year.  At  night,  after  his  work,  he  can  devote  his  time  to  this 
plot  of  ground,  and  the  charity  accomplishes  two  purposes — contributes 
to  his  support,  and  fosters  a  spirit  of  industry — thus  saving  him  from 
the  idleness  and  dissipation  of  the  public  house. 

As  for  the  mechanics,  they  have  still  less  hours  and  a  half  day  on 
Saturday.  Their  wages  run  from  seventy-five  cents  to  a  dollar  and  a 
half  a  day. 

The  chief  weeds  with  which  an  English  farmer  has  to  contend  are 
thistles  and  poppies.  Now  there  is  nothing  remarkable  about  a  thistle 
unless  you  are  barefooted,  but  the  idea  of  a  poppy  being  a  weed  is  striking- 
enough.  You  know  how  choice  we  are  of  them  in  our  gardens,  and 
what  an  addition  to  a  plot  are  their  brilliant  tints.  Try  then  to  conjure 
up  the  spectacle  of  thousands  of  them  in  one  inclosure.  They  are 
called  red- weed  in  England,  and  flourish  principally  in  the  grain  fields, 
where  their  deep  red  contrasts  magnificently  with  the  dark  green  of  the 
wheat,  oats  and  barley.  I  have  seen  fields  so  abounding  with  poppies  as 
to  look  as  if  they  were  splashed  with  blood,  and  the  beauty  of  the  scene 
is  beyond  all  description. 

Bearing  their  brilliant  heads  among  the  dark  green  of  the  grain 
they  present  a  picture  which  must  touch  every  heart,  although  differ- 
ently. I  have  seen  two  men  at  the  hedge  on  the  opposite  sides  of  a  field 
gaze  for  half  an  hour  on  the  wonderful  blending  of  color.  One  was 
speechless,  with  his  eyes  glistening  with  exquisite  delight — he  was  a 
tourist.  The  other  was  speechless,  too,  but  his  eyes  did  not  glisten — 
he  was  the  owner  of  the  field.  [Laughter.] 

There  is  not  a  corn  field  in  all  England.  They  use  large  quantities 
of  corn,  which  they  call  maize,  to  feed  to  stock,  but  they  import  it  from 
America.  I  saw  but  three  stalks  of  corn  in  Britain.  Two  of  them  were 
in  Shakespeare's  garden  at  Stratford,  where  they  equally  divided  with 
the  immortal  bard  the  admiration  of  American  visitors.  The  third  was 
making  a  heroic,  but  hopeless,  fight  for  dear  life  in  a  flower-pot  in  an 
Edinburgh  hotel.  The  weather  is  not  hot  enough  to  mature  corn  or  to- 
matoes, and  they  have  to  train  their  fruit  trees  against  brick  walls,  as. 
we  do  grape  vines,  in  order  to  ripen  the  fruit. 


THE  DAN  BURY  NEWS  MAN.  257 

They  don't  have  beans  either;  I  mean  the  white  cooking  bean. 
They  grow  a  yellowish  brown  bean — fields  of  it — which  is  the  only  bean 
they  harvest  for  the  winter,  and  that  they  feed  to  stock.  When  I  told 
them  of  our  white  beans,  ripened  in  the  field,  and  served  on  the  table 
through  the  winter  and  spring,  they  looked  so  unfriendly  that  I  dropped 
the  subject  at  once. 

The  absence  of  this  article  may  explain,  perhaps,  Boston's  inability 
to  establish  a  successful  steamship  line  with  England. 

"When  I  made  my  trip,  it  was  publicly  announced  by  well  meaning 
people,  that  I  had  gone  to  England  to  help  put  up  a  stove.  This  was  a 
mistake.  The  English  do  not  associate  with  stoves.  I  saw  none  there, 
excepting  two  withered  looking  specimens  of  the  cooking  pattern,  which 
were  on  exhibition  in  a  museum,  and  several  mongrel  affairs,  half  stove, 
half  grate,  which  were  loftily  called  American  stoves,  but  which  were  of 
Scotch  origin  and  manufacture.  The  English  don't  take  to  stoves,  and 
will  not  use  them  because  they  like  to  see  the  fire — it  is  so  cheerful  and 
cozy.  Once  in  awhile  I  like  to  feel  it,  but  I  carefully  refrained  from 
saying  so.  I  have  seen  an  Englishmen  sit  shivering  for  an  hour  in  front 
of  a  fire-place,  with  a  smile  on  his  face.  He  liked  to  see  the  fire. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  hospitality  of  the  English.  It  natur- 
ally follows  that  a  hospitable  people  should  be  good  eaters.  These  are, 
excepting  at  breakfast,  when  a  very  little  does  them,  the  late  supper  is 
responsible  for  this,  I  imagine.  This  supper  comes  off  some  three  or 
four  hours  later  than  the  tea,  or  about  nine  or  ten  o'clock.  It  is  always 
hearty,  consisting  quite  frequently  of  roast  meats,  salads,  hot  pickles, 
•tarts,  and  other  things  calculated  to  make  a  bilious  party  go  raving  mad 
in  the  night.  After  a  stranger  has  got  one  of  these  suppers  concen- 
trated in  the  pit  of  his  stomach  he  is  in  a  condition  to  commit  almost 
any  atrocity,  and  goes  to  bed  very  much  in  doubt  if  he  will  awake  again 
and  somewhat  inclined  to  hope  that  he  will  not.  Speaking  to  an  Eng- 
lish friend,  after  one  of  these  late  suppers,  of  the  scarcity  of  butter  and 
fresh  bread  at  the  English  table,  he  explained  that  fresh  bread  and  too 
much  butter  disagreed  with  the  stomach.  I  made  no  reply;  but  I  looked 
from,  the  ruins  before  us  up  to  the  clock  which  marked  11  P.  M.  The 
English  are  very  careful  of  their  stomachs. 

There  is  an  accompaniment  to  each  meal  which  strikes  the  stranger 
most  forcibly.  It  is  their  way  of  saying  grace.  They  are  the  most  sud- 
den people  in  this  particular  I  ever  saw,  and  have  a  fashion  of  firing  off 
their  gratitude  which  is  most  startling.  The  text  is  something  like 
this: 

"For  what  we  are  now  about  to  receive  make  us  truly  thankful." 


258  KIXGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

And  this,  by  some  families,  is  slid  in  most  unexpectedly,  and  it  has 
come  so  rapidly  and  with  such  abruptness  on  several  occasions,  that  I 
have  missed  it  entirely,  hearing  only  the  word  "about."  preceded  and 
followed  by  a  subdued  whistling.  There  being  no  abatement  in  the 
work  at  the  table  at  the  time,  tended  to  make  the  impression  the  less 
distinct.  The  giving  of  thanks,  where  it  is  the  custom,  at  the  end  of 
the  meal,  has  frequently  cut  off  a  valuable  mouthful  of  food,  so  sudden 
and  unexpected  was  its  coming;  and  the  conversation  and  happy  laugh- 
ter flowed  along  without  a  break,  and  those  who  were  to  finish  did  so, 
and  every  body  looked  contented  and  edified. 

This  is  quite  a  contrast  to  our  New  England  fashion  of  being  grate- 
ful. I  have  eaten  under  a  grace  which  froze  the  gravy  [laughter],  irre- 
trievably damaged  the  mutton,  and  imbued  the  greater  part  of  the 
guests  with  the  gloomiest  forebodings;  in  which  the  African  and  the 
South  Sea  Islander  were  looked  after  and  secured  beyond  harm;  and  all 
political  cabals  were  taken  under  the  fifth  rib,  completely  dumbfounded, 
and  their  evil  machinations  scattered  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven.  It 
was  a  fine  performance,  and  a  good  thing  for  humanity  at  large,  but  it 
made  the  dinner  look  sick.  [Laughter.]  I  think  I  like  the  English 
extreme  the  best,  but  both  can  be  bettered.  And  never  \vill  be. 

The  common  use  of  endearing  terms  in  the  family  circle  makes  a 
lively  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the  stranger.  "  Love/'  "  lovey  "  and 
"my  love";  "dear/7  " deary "  and  "my  dear"  are  the  popular  and 
soothing  adjectives  which  are  constantly  floating  through  the  domestic 
air.  I  think  it  is  overdone  when  four  or  five  "loves  "  or  "  dears  "  season 
a  simple  request.  Yet  they  sound  infinitely  better  than  our  "  old  man" 
or  "old  woman, "or  even  "mutton-head."  I  never  knew  "mutton- 
head  "  to  work  well  as  a  term  of  endearment;  still,  it  is  useful. 

There  is  a  popular  fallacy  that  living  in  England  is  much  cheaper 
than  in  America.  It  is  a  fallacy. 

Food  is  more  expensive  in  England  than  in  America.  They  eat  our 
bacon  and  flour,  and  you  can  not  carry  them  across  the  ocean  and  sell 
them  as  cheaply  as  here  at  home. 

It  costs  the  English  laborer  less  to  live  than  our  laborer,  because  he 
does  not  live  as  well.  If  English  farmers  lived  as  well  as  our  farmers, 
they  would  soon  be  bankrupt. 

The  English  have  an  exalted  idea  of  wages  in  this  country.  As  com- 
pared with  their  prices  for  help,  ours  must  appear  mountainous.  And 
they  think  that  saving  money  must  be  a  pastime  with  us.  And  so  it  is, 
although,  of  course,  we  have  other  recreations.  [Laughter.]  Their 
provisions  cost  less,  because  they  eat  less,  but  their  rents  are  less  than 


THE  DANE URT  NEWS  MAN.  259 

ours.  I  have  occasionally  told  them  that  there  are  females  employed  in 
the  hat  factories  of  Danbury  who  earn  four  dollars  a  day.  I  grew  quite 
fond  of  imparting  this  bit  of  information,  because  it  so  amazed  them. 
I  was  fond  of  doing  it  until  I  went  to  Aberdeen  in  Scotland,  and  saw 
women  make  five  dollars  a  day  in  gold,  cleaning  herrings;  then  I  dropped 
the  subject.  This  sum  is  equal  to  £en  dollars  in  America.  There  are 
very  few  concerns  in  this  country  which  pay  female  operatives  ten  dol- 
lars a  day,  either  to  put  linings  in  hats  or  to  remove  them  from  fish. 
[Laughter.] 

Rents  are  much  less,  I  say,  there  than  here,  startling  as  the  state- 
ment may  sound.  Near  Oxford  street,  London,  are  blocks  upon  blocks 
of  quality  residences,  owned  by  certain  earls  and  dukes,  and  rented  on  a 
hundred  years'  lease  to  aristocratic  tenants  at  a  price  which  makes  the 
English  stare  because  of  its  magnitude,  and  causes  us  Americans  to 
laugh  because  of  its  insignificance.  At  St.  John's  "Wood,  where  the 
west  end  of  the  city  looks  over  its  back  fence  upon  cultivated  fields,  a 
neat  three-story,  brick  tenement  can  be  rented  for  two  hundred  dollars  a 
year.  Try  to  do  the  same  with  a  similarly  located  property  in  New  York 
City,  and  the  owner  would  inveigle  you  up  to  the  roof  and  throw  you  off, 
and  no  jury  in  the  land  could  be  found  to  convict  him. 

While  on  the  subject  of  extortion  I  should  like  to  take  a  pull  at  my 
old  foe,  the  cabman.  There  is  the  hackney  carriage  running  on  four 
wheels,  and  the  hansom  cab  running  on  two.  In  England  they  are 
simply  known  as  "  four- wheelers/"'  and  "two- wheelers."  The  latter  are 
much  the  pleasanter  to  ride  in,  but  the  pleasure  is  somewhat  modified 
by  the  discussion,  recrimination  and  perspiration  which  invariably  ac- 
company the  payment  of  the  fare.  With  the  four-wheelers  one  pluck- 
ing appears  to  suffice,  and  once  away  from  the  railway  station  you  can 
expect  to  be  carried  a  mile  in  any  direction  at  the  fare  established  for 
that  distance,  which  is  one  shilling. 

You  take  a  two- wheeler,  are  driven  a  half  mile  and  throw  the  driver 
a  shilling.  He  looks  at  it  in  a  perplexed  and  commiserative  way  which 
is  beyond  all  imitation  and  asks,  "What's  this  for?"  You  patiently 
explain  to  him.  He  says,  "eighteen  pence  is  the  fare."  You  protest  that 
the  distance  does  not  warrant  the  charge.  He  is  obstinate.  You  can 
force  him,  so  the  card  of  rates  posted  inside  say,  to  drive  to  the  nearest 
police  station  for  adjudication.  But  you  are  a  stranger.  He  may  drive 
you  to  the  first  police  station,  and  he  may  drive  you  over  the  nearest 
embankment.  You  pay  him  the  extra  sixpence,  and  curse  the  govern- 
ment under  which  he  thrives.  The  shilling  goes  to  his  employer,  and 
the  sixpence  is  laid  up  by  himself  for  a  rainy  day. 


260  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

It  rains  a  great  deal  in  England. 

When  the  intricacies  of  the  'bus  lines  are  once  mastered,  traveling 
about  London  is  an  inexpensive  and  genuine  pleasure.  The  English  'bus 
system  is  superior  to  ours,  both  in  regard  to  the  comfort  of  the  passengers 
and  the  horses  which  draw  them.  On  the  box  with  the  driver  is  accommo- 
dation for  four  persons.  Kunning  the  length  of  the  roof  is  a  double  seat, 
reached  by  a  ladder  on  each  side  of  the  door.  The  'bus  has  so  much 
seating  capacity  and  when  that  is  occupied  no  more  passengers  are  taken 
on.  Between  the  'bus  driver  and  the  cabman  there  is  a  feeling  of  undy- 
ing hate,  which  is  most  gratifying  to  him  who  has  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
the  latter,  because  the  wheels  and  motive  power  of  the  'bus  are  so  much 
greater  that  the  utter  discomfiture  of  the  cabman  is  a  sure  thing  in  the 
event  of  a  collision.  I  have  sat  on  the  box  seat  for  an  hour  at  a  time, 
and  have  heard  the  driver  curse  the  cabbies  and  seen  him  crowd  them 
against  the  curb  with  his  remorseless  wheels  until  it  did  seem  as  if  my 
cup  of.  happiness  would  run  over  and  drown  inoffensive  people.  I  used 
the  word  "  cursing "  unadvisedly,  perhaps.  We  understand  by  that 
profanity,  but  the  English  are  not  given  to  profanity.  Whether  this  is 
because  there  are  no  stoves  in  England,  or  is  due  to  a  national  church,  I 
am  not  able  to  state.  But  I  rarely  heard  an  oath  during  all  my  sojourn 
in  England.  [Applause.] 

The  English  cab  fares  are  a  shilling  for  a  mile,  for  one  or  two  persons, 
and  a  sixpence  for  each  additional  mile.  The  law  which  established 
these  prices  knows  more  about  the  subject  than  I  do.  But,  still,  the 
charge  appears  to  be  a  very  small  sum,  and,  especially  so,  when  it  is 
understood  that  the  cabman  pays  from  six  to  ten  shillings  a  day  for  the 
use  of  the  establishment,  and  must  drive  that  number  of  fares  before  he 
can  begin  to  make  any  thing  for  himself.  They  generally  bite  me,  and 
it  makes  me  mad  enough  to  knock  their  heads  off,  but  yet  I  am  sorry  for 
them.  They  have  got  to  fleece  somebody,  I  suppose,  to  make  both  ends 
meet;  still,  it  would  be  much  better  if  poor  people  did  not  have  two 
ends. 

But  after  I  had  been  there  awhile  they  did  not  scorch  me  so  badly. 
I  played  a  march  on  them  by  donning  a  pair  of  English  trousers  —  the 
regular  tights.  In  fact,  they  clung  so  tight  to  me  that  I  had  to  take 
them  off  when  I  wanted  to  get  any  thing  out  of  the  pockets.  [Laughter.] 
On  engaging  a  cab  I  would  bring  my  legs  conspicuously  to  the  front, 
when  the  driver  looked  into  my  open  and  ingenuous  countenance  he 
would  be  tempted  to  charge  me  a  sixpence  extra,  but  on  glancing  down 
at  my  trousers  he  would  take  another  thought,  and  unhesitatingly  com- 
promise on  a  thrip-pence.  [Laughter.] 


PUTTING  UP  A  STOVE  PIPE. 


See  page  261. 


THE  DANE UR Y  NEWSMAN.  261 

The  money  I  thus  saved  I  gave  to  the  South  Sea  Islanders,  when  I 
met  them.     [Applause.] 


BAILEY  ON  PUTTING  UP  A  STOVE  PIPE. 

Putting  up  a  stove  is  not  so  difficult  in  itself.  It  is  the  pipe  that 
raises  four-fifths  of  the  mischief  and  all  the  dust.  You  may  take  down 
a  stove  with  all  the  care  in  the  world,  and  yet  that  pipe  won't  come 
together  again  as  it  was  before.  You  find  this  out  when  you  are  stand- 
ing on  a  chair  with  your  arms  full  of  pipe,  and  your  mouth  full  of  soot. 
Your  wife  is  standing  on  the  floor  in  a  position  that  enables  her  to  see 
you,  the  pipe  and  the  chair,  and  here  she  gives  utterance  to  those  re- 
marks that  are  calculated  to  hasten  a  man  into  the  extremes  of  insanity. 
Her  dress  is  pinned  over  her  waist,  and  her  hands  rest  on  her  hips.  She 
has  got  one  of  your  hats  on  her  head,  and  your  linen  coat  on  her  back, 
and  a  pair  of  rubbers  on  her  feet.  There  is  about  five  cents'  worth  of  pot- 
black  on  her  nose  and  a  lot  of  flour  on  her  chin,  and  altogether  she  is  a 
spectacle  that  would  inspire  a  dead  man  with  distrust.  And  while  you 
are  up  there  trying  to  circumvent  the  awful  contrariness  of  the  pipe, 
and  telling  that  you  know  some  fool  has  been  mixing  it,  she  stands  safely 
on  the  floor,  and  bombards  you  with  such  domestic  mottoes  as,  ' '  YThat's 
the  use  of  swearing  so?"  "You  know  no  one  has  touched  that  pipe. " 
"You  ain't  got  any  more  patience  than  a  child."  "Do  be  careful  of 
that  chair."  And  then  she  goes  off,  and  reappears  with  an  armful  more 
of  pipe,  and  before  you  are  aware  of  it  she  has  got  that  pipe  so  horribly 
mixed  up  that  it  does  seem  no  two  pieces  are  alike. 

You  join  the  ends  and  work  them  to  and  fro,  and  to  and  fro  again, 
and  then  you  take  them  apart  and  look  at  them.  Then  you  spread  one 
out  and  jam  the  other  together,  and  mount  them  once  more.  But  it  is 
no  go.  You  begin  to  think  the  pieces  are  inspired  with  life,  and  ache  to- 
kick  them  through  the  window.  But,  flie  doesn't  lose  her  patience.  She 
goes  around  with  that  awfully  exasperating  rigging  on,  with  a  length  of 
pipe  under  each  arm  and  a  long-handled  broom  in  her  hand,  and  says 
she  don't  see  how  it  is  some  people  never  have  any  trouble  putting  up  a 
store.  Then  you  miss  the  hammer.  You  don't  see  it  any  where.  You 
stare  into  the  pipe,  along  the  mantel,  and  down  on  the  stove,  and  off  to 
the  floor.  Your  wife  watches  you,  and  is  finally  thoughtful  enough  to 
inquire  what  you  are  looking  after,  andj  on  learning,  pulls  the  article 
from  her  pocket.  Then  you  feel  as  if  you  could  go  outdoors,  and  swear 
a  hole  twelve  feet  square  through  a  block  of  brick  buildings;  but  she 


262  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

meekly  observes:  "  Why  on  earth  don't  you  speak  when  you  want  any 
thing,  and  not  stare  around  like  a  dummy?"  "When  that  part  of  the 
pipe,  which  goes  through  the  wall  is  up,  she  keeps  it  up  with  the  broom 
while  you  are  making  the  connection,  and  stares  at  it  with  an  intensity 
that  is  entirely  uncalled  for.  All  the  while  your  position  is  becoming 
more  and  more  interesting.  The  pipe  don't  go  together,  of  course.  The 
soot  shakes  down  into  your  eyes  and  mouth,  the  sweat  rolls  down  your 
face,  and  tickles  your  chin  as  it  drops  off,  and  it  seems  as  if  your  arms 
are  slowly  but  surely  drawing  out  of  their  sockets. 

Here  your  wife  comes  to  the  rescue  by  inquiring  if  you  are  going  to 
be  all  day  doing  nothing,  and  if  you  think  her  arms  are  made  of  cast- 
iron;  and  then  the  broom  slips  off  the  pipe,  and  in  her  endeavor  to  re- 
cover her  hold,  she  jabs  you  under  the  chin  with  the  handle,  and  the 
pipe  comes  down  on  your  head  with  its  load  of  fried  soot,  and  then  the 
<jhair  tilts  forward  enough  to  discharge  your  feet,  and  you  come  down 
on  the  wrong  end  of  that  chair,  with  a  force  that  would  bankrupt  a  pile- 
driver.  You  don't  touch  that  stove  again.  You  leave  your  wife  ex- 
amining the  chair,  and  bemoaning  its  injuries;  and  go  into  the  kitchen, 
and  wash  your  skinned  and  bleeding  hands  with  yellow  soap.  Then  you 
go  down  street  after  a  man  to  do  the  business,  and  your  wife  goes  over 
to  the  neighbors  with  her  chair,  and  tells  them  about  its  injuries,  and 
drains  the  neighborhood  dry  of  its  sympathy  long  before  you  get  home. 


JOHN   B.  GOUGH. 

THE   ELOQUENT   TEMPERANCE    ORATOR. 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

When  Gough  died,  temperance  lost  her  best  friend.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  he 
had  raised  his  voice  against  intemperance  and  for  the  purity  of  the  home.  He  was 
born  in  Lancashire,  England,  and  died  in  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  in  1888.  In 
public  lectures  and  in  private  conversations,  he  carried  on  the  work  of  reform.  Mr. 
Gough  published  several  books,  which  were  in  the  form  of  autobiography  and 
speeches.  His  lectures  were  full  of  anecdotes,  in  the  Lancashire  dialect,  which 
was  rendered  so  exquisitely,  that  his  wit  and  pathos  were  novel  and  wonderful.  Mr. 
Gough  was  not  a  writer.  He  was  an  actor.  His  telling  anecdotes  were  mostly  writ- 
ten by  others. 

John  B.  Gough  was  the  great  war  horse  of  the  lecture  platform. 
Beecher  said  of  him  that  he  lectured  against  intoxication,  but  he 
intoxicated  his  hearers  with  his  eloquence.  In  his  earlier  lecturing 
days  Gough  was  a  delightful  man  to  be  with,  and  never  grew  tire- 
some. He  did  not  like  a  small  audience,  and  scarcely  concealed  his 
petulancy.  He  was  a  good  story-teller,  and  seemed  to  live  entirely 
for  those  around  him. 

One  day  a  Christian  gentleman,  in  England,  came  to  Gough  to 
talk  about  total  abstinence.  Said  the  gentleman : 

"  I  have  a  conscientious  objection  to  teetotalism,  and  it  is  this : 
our  Savior  made  wine  at  the  marriage  of  Cana  in  Galilee." 

"  I  know  He  did." 

"  He  made  it  because  they  wanted  it." 

"  So  the  Bible  tells  us." 

"  He  made  it  of  water." 

"Yes." 

"  Well,  He  performed  a  miracle  to  make  that  wine." 

"Yes." 

263 


264  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"Then  He  honored  and  sanctified  wine  by  performing  a  miracle 
to  make  it.  Therefore,"  said  he,  "I  feel  that,  if  I  should  give  up 
the  use  of  wine,  I  should  be  guilty  of  ingratitude,  and  should  be 
reproaching  my  Master." 

"  Sir,"  said  Gough,  "I  can  understand  how  you  should  feel  so; 
but  is  there  nothing  else  that  you  put  by,  which  our  Savior  has 
honored?" 

"  No,  I  don't  know  that  there  is." 

"  Do  you  eat  barley  bread  ? " 

"  No ; "  and  then  began  to  laugh. 

"  And  why  2 " 

"Because  I  don't  like  it." 

"  Yery  well,  sir,"  said  I,  "  our  Savior  sanctified  barley  bread 
just  as  much  as  He  ever  did  wine.  He  fed  five  thousand  people  on 
barley  loaves  by  a  miracle.  You  put  away  barley  bread  from  the 
low  motive  of  not  liking  it.  I  ask  you  to  put  away  wine  from  the 
higher  motive  of  bearing  the  infirmity  of  your  weaker  brother,  and 
so  fulfilling  the  law  of  Christ." 

One  day  I  asked  Gough  to  tell  some  of  his  first  temperance 
experiences. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "when  I  first  signed  the  pledge,  I  still  con- 
tinued the  use  of  tobacco.  One  day  when  I  was  engaged  to  speak 
at  an  out-door  meeting,  I  met  a  friend,  who  said  to  me,  '  I've  some 
first-rate  cigars;  will  you  take  a  few  ?' 

"<  No  thank  you,'  I  said,  '  I  have  nowhere  to  put  them.' 

" '  You  can  put  half  a  dozen  in  your  cap,'  my  friend  insisted. 
Well,  I  put  the  cigars  in  my  cap,  attended  the  meeting  under  the 
open  sky,  and  ascended  the  platform  before  an  audience  of  two 
thousand  children.  I  kept  my  cap  on  to  avoid  taking  cold,  and  for- 
got all  about  the  cigars.  Toward  the  close  of  my  address,  after 
warning  the  boys  against  all  sorts  of  bad  habits,  I  said  : 

"'Now,  boys,  let  us  give  three  rousing  cheers  for  temperance. 
Now !  Hurrah  ! '  In  my  excitement  I  pulied  off  my  cap,  waved  it 
vigorously,  and  flung  the  cigars  right  and  left  at  the  audience.  The 
cheers  changed  to  a  roar  of  laughter  at  my  expense.  Nor  was  I 
relieved  from  my  confusion  when  a  boy  stepped  up  on  the  platform, 
holding  out '  one  of  those  dreadful  cigars,'  and  said,  politely,  'Here 
is  one  of  your  cigars,  Mr.  Gough.'  " 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH,  THE  APOSTLE  OF  TEMPERANCE. 


266  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


GOUGH'S  GEEAT  LECTUEE. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — I  read  in  the  "Christian  Almanack"  the 
other  day  that  a  gentleman  said:  "I  have  drunk  a  bottle  of  wine  every 
y  day  for  the  last  fifty  years,  and  I  enjoy  capital  health."  "  Yes;  but 
what  has  become  of  your  companions?"  "Ah!"  said  he,  "that  is 
another  thing;  I  have  buried  three  generations  of  them." 
v  On  one  occasion,  while  a  British  officer  was  urging  a  native  to  exam- 
ine the  claims  of  Christianity,  two  drunken  English  soldiers  passed. 

"See,"  said  the  native,  "do  you  wish  me  to  be  like  that?    As  a 
Mohammedan  I  could  not;  as  a  Christian  I  might."     [Sensation.] 
^While  I  was  in  San  Francisco,  a  number  of  young  men  came  to  me 
up  the  back  stairs  of  the  hotel  after  dark  and  revealed  awful  histories. 
One  man  lay  on  the  carpet  at  my  feet,  exclaiming: 

"Send  me  home;  for  the  love  of  God,  get  me  out  of  here!  I  will 
go  in  a  freight  or  cattle  train — any  thing  to  get  out  of  here!  "  It  was 
the  cry  all  around,  "Drink  is  my  curse."  Everywhere  we  hear  it, 
"Drink  is  my  curse." 

x^A  poor  fellow  in  Exeter  Hall  signed  the  temperance  pledge  some 
twenty  or  thirty  years  ago.  He  was  a  prize-fighter — a  miserable, 
debauched,  degraded,  ignorant  creature.  A  gentleman  stood  by  his 
side,  a  builder  in  London,  employing  some  hundreds  of  men,  and  he 
said  to  him— what  did  he  say?  "  Stick  to  it?"  No!  "  I  hope  you  will 
stick  to  it,  my  friend?"  No!  "  It  will  be  a  good  thing  for  you  if  you 
stick  to  it  ?"  No !  He  said  this : 

"Where  do  you  sleep  to-night?" 

"  Where  I  slept  last  night." 

"  And  where  is  that?  " 

"In  the  streets." 

"No,  you  won't;  you  have  signed  this  pledge,  and  you  belong  to  this 
society,  and  you  are  going  home  with  me."  [Applause.] 

<  In  Edinburgh  they  have  a  club-room  in  which  reformed  men  spend 
their  evenings,  and  young  men  come  there  to  get  away  from  temptation* 
One  night  a  man  came  in  very  drunk. 

"Do  you  know  what  place  this  is?"  he  was  asked. 

"This  is  a  teetotalers'  club." 

"Yes;  but  you  are  drunk." 

"I  know  I  am;  I  am  awfully  drunk." 

"What  business  have  you  here?" 

"I  am  a  teetotaler." 

"  But  you  are  drunk." 


JOHN  B.  UOUGH.  26? 

"  What!  did  you  never  see  a  drunken  teetotaler?  I'm  drunk,  and  I'm 
a  teetotaler."  Some  one  thinking  he  was  chaffing,  said,  "You  had  bet- 
ter go  out." 

"  Gentlemen,"  pleaded  the  man,  "don't  put  me  out.  I  am  a  teeto- 
taler. Here's  my  pledge.  I  signed  it  about  an  hour  ago,  and  I  have 
lot  touched  a  drop  since.  I  have  come  in  here  for  safety!" 

L  There  is  a  place  in  London  where  young  men  assemble  nightly;  and 
I  rell  you,  young  gentlemen,  it  was  to  me  a  fearful  and  appalling  sight. 
An  immense  room,  capable  of  holding  some  1,500  persons,  with  a  fine 
band  of  music  at  one  end.  I  found  young  men  there  as  genteel  in 
appearance  as  any  amongst  you.  The  gentlemen  with  me  knew  some  of 
them.  "There,"  said  one  of  them,  "is  a  man  in  such-and-such  a  shop; 
there  is  another  in  another  establishment."  And  what  were  they  doing? 
In  one  room  were  the  tables  set  with  the  sparkling  wine,  and  right  before 
that  assembled  crowd  of  1,000  persons  they  had  no  more  shame  left  than 
to  be  dancing  in  the  middle  of  that  hall  with  the  common  women  of  the 
town.  I  asked,  "Why,  I  should  think  those  young  men  would  be 
ashamed  of  it ! " 

"Shame,  sir!  Three  or  four  glasses  of  wine  will  destroy  shame." 
[Applause.] 

^<A.  gentleman  was  once  lecturing  in  the  neighborhood  of  London.  In 
the  course  of  his  address  he  said: 

"All  have  influence.  Do  not  say  that  you  have  none;  every  one  has 
some  influence." 

There  was  a  rough  man  at  the  other  end  of  the  room  with  a  little 
girl  in  his  arms. 

"Every  body  has  influence,  even  that  little  child,"  said  the  lecturer, 
pointing  to  her. 

"That's  true,  sir,"  cried  the  man. 

Every  body  looked  round,  of  course;  but  the  man  said  no  more,  and 
the  lecturer  proceeded.  At  the  close  the  man  came  up  to  the  gentleman 
andjgaid : 

//^'Ibeg  your  pardon,  sir,  but  I  could  not  help  speaking.  I  was  a 
drunkard;  but  as  I  did  not  like  to  go  to  the  public-house  alone,  I  used 
to  carry  this  child.  As  I  came  near  the  public-house  one  night,  hearing 
a  great  noise  inside,  she  said: 

"  ' Don't  go,  father.'  ^ 

"  'Hold  your  tongue,  child.' 

"  '  Please,  father,  don't  go/ 

"  '  Hold  your  tongue,  I  say/ 

"Presently  I  felt  a  big  tear  on  my  cheek.  I  could  not  go  a  step 
farther,  sir.  I  turned  round  and  went  home,  and  have  never  been  in  a 


268  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

public-house  since — thank  God  for  it.  I  am  now  a  happy  man,  sir,  and 
this  little  girl  has  done  it  all;  and  when  you  said  that  even  she  had 
influence  I  could  not  help  saying  'That's  true,  sir;'  all  have  influence. " 
[Applause.] 

We  want  religion  with  our  temperance. 

V  I  heard  the  Hon.  Tom  Marshall,  of  Kentucky,  make  a  ten  minutes' 
speech  in  Broadway  Tabernacle,  in  which  he  said:  "Were  this  great 
globe  one  chrysolite,  and  I  offered  the  possession  if  I  would  drink 
one  glasss  of  brandy,  I  would  refuse  it  with  scorn;  and  I  want  no  relig- 
ion, I  want  the  temperance  pledge."  With  that  wonderful  voice  of  his 
he  thundered  out:  "We  want  no  religion  in  this  movement;  let  it  be 
purely  secular,  and  keep  religion  where  it  belongs." 

Poor  Tom  Marshall,  with  all  his  self-confidence,  fell,  and  died  at 
Poughkeepsie  in  clothes  given  him  by  Christian  charity. 
\  A  mother,  on  the  green  hills  of  Vermont,  was  holding  by  the  right 
hand  a  boy,  sixteen  years  old,  mad  with  the  love  of  the  sea.     And  as  he 
stood  at  the  garden-gate  one  morning,  she  said : 

"Edward,  they  tell  me — for  I  never  saw  the  ocean — that  the  great 
temptation  of  seamen's  life  is  drink.  Promise  me,  before  you  quit  your 
mother's  hand,  that  you  will  never  drink  liquor." 

"  I  gave  the  promise,"  said  he.  Then  he  went  the  world  over,  to 
Calcutta,  the  Mediterranean,  San  Francisco,  and  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  the  North  and  South  Poles. 

"I  saw  them  all  in  forty  years,"  he  said  afterward,  "and  I  never 
saw  a  glass  filled  with  sparkling  liquor  that  my  mother's  form  at  the 
gate  did  not  rise  up  before  my  eyes;  and  to-day  I  am  innocent  of  the 
taste  of  liquor." 

Was  not  that  sweet  evidence  of  the  power  of  a  single  word? 

Yet  that  is  not  half,  " for,"  he  continued,  "yesterday  there  came 
into  my  counting-room  a  man  of  forty  years. 

"'  Do  you  know  me?'   . 

"'No/ 

"  'Well/  said  the  man,  '  I  was  brought  into  your  presence  on  ship- 
board; you  were  a  passenger;  they  kicked  me  aside;  you  took  me  to 
your  berth,  and  kept  me  there  until  I  had  slept  off  my  intoxication. 
You  then  asked  me  if  I  had  a  mother.  1  said  I  never  heard  a  word 
from  her  lips.  You  told  me  of  yours  at  the  garden-gate,  and  to-day  I 
am  master  of  one  of  the  finest  ships  in  New  York  harbor,  and  I  have 
come  to  ask  you  to  corns  and  see  me.' '' 

The  drunkard  is  always  in  danger.     [Applause.] 


YOUNG  MEN,  AHOY! 


See  page  269. 


JOHN  B.  GO  UGH.  269 

I  remember  riding  toward  the  Niagara  Falls,  and  I  said  to  a  gentle- 
man near  me,  "What  river  is  that,  sir?" 

"  The  Niagara  river/'  he  replied. 

""Well,"  said  I,  "it  is  a  beautiful  stream — bright,  smooth  and  glassy. 
How  far  off  are  the  rapids?" 

"  About  a  mile  or  two." 

"  Is  it  possible  that  only  a  mile  or  two  from  us  we  shall  find  the 
water  in  such  turbulence  as  I  presume  it  must  be  near  the  falls?" 

"You  will  find  it  so,  sir." 

And  so  I  found  it;  and  that  first  sight  of  the  Niagara  I  shall  never 
forget.  Now  launch  your  bark  upon  the  Niagara  river;  it  is  bright, 
smooth,  beautiful  and  glassy;  there  is  a  ripple  at  the  bow;  the  silvery 
wake  you  leave  behind  you  adds  to  your  enjoyment;  down  the  stream  you 
glide;  you  have  oars,  mast,  sail  and  rudder,  prepared  for  every  contin- 
gency, and  thus  you  go  out  on  your  pleasure  excursion.  Some  one  cries 
out  from  the  bank, 

"  Young  men,  ahoy!" 

"What  is  it?"  he  asks. 

"  The  rapids  are  below  you.'' 

"Ha!  ha!  we  have  heard  of  the  rapids  below  us,"  laughs  the  man, 
"but  we  are  not  such  fools  as  to  get  into  them;  when  we  find  we  are 
going  too  fast  to  suit  our  convenience,  then  hard  up  the  helm  and  steer 
to  shore;  when  we  find  we  are  passing  a  given  point  too  rapidly,  then  we 
will  set  the  mast  in  the  socket,  hoist  the  sail,  and  speed  to  land." 

"Young  men,  ahoy!"  comes  the  voice  again. 

"What is  it?" 

"  The  rapids  are  below  you." 

"  Ha!  ha!  we  will  laugh  and  quaff;  all  things  delight  us;  what  care  we 
for  the  future?  No  man  ever  saw  it.  '  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof.'  We  will  enjoy  life  while  we  may,  and  catch  pleasure  as  it  flies. 
This  is  the  time  for  enjoyment;  time  enough  to  steer  out  of  danger  when 
we  find  we  are  sailing  too  swiftly  with  the  stream." 

"Young men,  ahoy!" 

"What  is  it?" 

"The  rapids  are  below  you.  Now  see  the  water  foaming  all  around 
you! — see  how  fast  you  go!  *  Now  hard  up  the  helm! —  quick!  quick! — 
pull  for  your  very  lives! — pull  till  the  blood  starts  from  your  nostrils  and 
the  veins  stand  like  whipcords  upon  the  brow!  Set  the  mast  in  the 
socket;  hoist  the  sail ! " 

*  No  pen  can  describe  the  startling  eloquence  of  Gongh  in  drawing  this  picture.  His  eyes 
flash  fire,  his  frame  shakes  with  righteous  indignation  and  pity,  and  only  those  who  have  heard 
the  great  lecturer  can  appreciate  the  scene. 


270  KLWQS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Ah!  it  is  too  late.  Shrieking,  cursing,  howling,  blaspheming,  over 
you  go;  and  thousands  thus  go  over  every  year  ly  the  power  of  evil  habits, 
declaring,  "When  I  find  out  that  it  is  injuring  me,  then  I  will  give  it 
up."  The  power  of  evil  habit  is  deceptive  and  fascinating,  and  the  man 
by  coming  to  false  conclusions  argues  his  way  down  to  destruction.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Many  people  begin  and  end  their  temperance  talks  by  calling  drunk- 
ards brutes.  No,  they  are  not  brutes.  I  have  labored  for  about  eighteen 
years  among  them  and  I  never  have  found  a  brute.  I  have  had  men 
swear  at  me;  I  have  had  a  man  dance  around  me  as  if  possessed  of  a  devil, 
and  spit  his  foam  in  my  face;  but  he  is  not  a  brute. 

I  think  it  is  Charles  Dickens,  who  says:  "  Away  up  a  great  many 
pair  of  stairs,  in  a  very  remote  corner,  easily  passed  by,  there  is  a  door, 
and  on  that  door  is  written  *  woman/  "  And  so  in  theheart  of  the  vile  out- 
cast, away  up  a  great  many  pair  of  stairs,  in  a  very  remote  corner,  easily 
passed  by,  there  is  a  door,  on  which  is  written  "man."  Here  is  our 
business,  to  find  that  door.  It  may  take  time;  but  begin  and  knock. 
Don't  get  tired;  but  remember  God's  long  suffering  for  us,  and  keep 
knocking  a  long  time  if  need  be.  Don't  get  weary  if  there  is  no  answer; 
remember  Him  whose  locks  were  wet  with  dew. 

Knock  on — just  try  it — you  try  it;  and  just  so  sure  as  you  do,  just  so 
sure,  by-and-by,  will  the  quivering  lip  and  starting  tear  tell  you  have 
knocked  at  the  heart  of  a  man  and  not  of  a  brute.  It  is  because  these 
poor  wretches  are  men,  and  not  brutes  that  we  have  hopes  of  them.  They 
said,  "  he  is  a  brute — let  him  alone."  I  took  him  home  with  me  and 
kept  the  "  brute "  fourteen  days  and  nights,  through  his  delirium;  and 
he  nearly  frightened  Mary  out  of  her  wits,  once  chasing  her  about  the 
house  with  a  boot  in  his  hand.  But  she  recovered  her  wits,  and  he 
recovered  his. 

He  said  to  me,  "  You  wouldn't  think  I  had  a  wife  and  child." 

"  Well,  I  shouldn't." 

"I  have,  and — God  bless  her  little  heart — my  little  Mary  is  as  pretty 
a  little  thing  as  ever  stepped,"  said  the  "  brute." 

I  asked,  "Where  do  they  live?" 

"  They  live  two  miles  away  from  here." 

"  When  did  you  see  them  last?" 

"About  two  years  ago."    Then  he  told  me  his  story. 

I  said,  "  You  must  go  back  to  your  home  again." 

"I  musn't  go  back — I  won't — my  wife  is  better  without  me  than  with 
me!  I  will  not  go  back  any  more;  I  have  knocked  her,  and  kicked  her, 
and  abused  her;  do  you  suppose  I  will  go  back  again?" 


JOHN  B.  GO  UGH.  271 

I  went  to  the  house  with  him;  I  knocked  at  the  door  and  his  wife 
opened  it. 

"  Is  this  Mrs.  Richardson  ?" 

"Yes,  sir/' 

"  Well,  that  is  Mr.  Eichardson.  And  Mr.  Richardson,  that  is  Mrs. 
Richardson.  Now  come  into  the  house." 

They  went  in.  The  wife  sat  on  one  side  of  the  room  and  the 
"  brute  "  on  the  other.  I  waited  to  see  who  would  speak  first;  and  it 
was  the  woman.  But  before  she  spoke  she  fidgeted  a  good  deal. 

She  pulled  her  apron  until  she  got  hold  of  the  hem,  and  then  she 
pulled  it  down  again.  Then  she  folded  it  up  closely,  and  jerked  it  out 
through  her  fingers  an  inch  at  a  time,  and  then  she  spread  it  all  down 
again;  and  then  she  looked  all  about  the  room  and  said, 

' '  Well,  William  ?  "    And  the  ' '  brute  "  said,  . 

"Well,  Mary?" 

He  had  a  large  handkerchief  round  his  neck,  and  she  said, 

"  You  had  better  take  the  handkerchief  off  William;  you'll  need  it 
when  you  go  out."  He  began  to  fumble  about. 

The  knot  was  large  enough;  he  could  have  untied  it  if  he  liked;  but 
he  said,  "  Will  you  untie  it,  Mary?"  and  she  worked  away  at  it;  but  her 
fingers  were  clumsy,  and  she  couldn't  get  it  off;  their  eyes  met,  and  the 
love  light  was  not  all  quenched;  she  opened  her  arms  gently  and  he  fell 
into  them.  If  you  had  seen  those  white  arms  clasped  about  his  neck,  and 
he  sobbing  on  her  breast,  and  the  child  looking  in  wonder  first  at  one  and 
then  at  the  other,  you  would  have  said,  "  It  is  not  a  brute;  it  is  a  man, 
with  a  great,  big,  warm  heart  in  his  breast." 

To  show  the  power  of  love  and  sympathy  over  the  human  heart,  I 
will  relate  a  well-known  incident: 

"  In  the  cabin  of  the  steamer  St.  John,  coming  up  the  Hudson  the 
other  evening,"  writes  Eli  Perkins,  "  sat  a  sad,  serious-looking  man,  who 
looked  as  if  he  might  have  been  a  clerk  or  book-keeper.  The  man  seemed 
to  be  caring  for  a  crying  baby,  and  was  doing  every  thing  he  could  to 
still  its  sobs.  As  the  child  became  restless  in  the  berth,  the  gentleman 
took  it  in  his  arms  and  carried  it  to  and  fro  in  the  cabin.  The  sobs  of 
the  child  irritated  a  rich  man,  who  was  trying  to  read,  until  he  blurted 
out,  loud  enough  for  the  father  to  hear: 

" '  What  does  he  want  to  disturb  the  whole  cabin  with  that  d 

baby  for?' 

"  '  Hush,  baby,  hush! '  and  then  the  man  only  nestled  the  baby  closer 
in  his  arms,  without  saying  a  word.  Then  the  baby  sobbed  again. 

"  'Where  is  the  confounded  mother,  that  she  don't  stop  its  noise?' 
continued  the  profane  grumbler. 


272  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"At  this,  the  grief-stricken  father  came  up  to  the  man,  and  with 
tears  in  his  eyes,  said:  'I  am  sorry  to  disturb  you,  sir,  but  my  dear  baby's 
mother  is  in  her  coffin  down  in  the  baggage  room.  Fm  taking  her  back 
to  her  grandmother,  in  Albany,  where  we  used  to  live.  [Sensation.] 

"The  hard-hearted  man  buried  his  face  in  shame,  but  in  a  moment, 
wilted  by  the  terrible  rebuke,  he  was  by  the  side  of  the  grief-stricken 
father.  They  were  both  tending  the  baby."  [Applause.] 

Treat  the  drunkard  kindly.  Pity  him,  and  do  not  scold  him. 
Wives,  speak  kindly  to  your  erring  husbands.  This  morning  I  read  a 
little  story  in  the  Pottstown  Miner  from  the  pen  of  "Eli  Perkins." 

"  The  morning  after  I  lectured  in  Wilkesbarre/'  said  Eli,  "  there 
was  a  great  colliery  explosion.  Hundreds  of  Cornish  miners  were  killed 
and  their  corpses  lay  at  the  mouth  of  the  coal  mine  for  recognition. 
Wives  were  wringing  their  hands  and  children  were  crying,  and  a  wail  of 
desolation  filled  the  air. 

"  Sitting  at  the  mouth  by  a  pale  corpse  was  a  young  wife.  She  looked 
at  her  husband,  but  uttered  no  cry;  her  eyes  were  dry.  She  rocked  her- 
self to  and  fro,  her  face  white  with  anguish. 

'" Oh,  that  I  had  spoke  fair  to  him  at  the  end! '  she  moaned.  '  Oh 
that  he  would  come  to  life  one  minute  that  I  could  say  Jimmy,  forgive 
me,  but  nothing  can  help  me  now.  Oh,  I  could  bear  it  all  if  Fd  only 
spoke  fair  to  him  at  the  end  ! ' 

"And  then  at  last,  the  story  came.  They  had  been  married  a  year, 
she  and  Jim;  and  they  both  '  had  tempers/  but,  Jim,  he  was  always  the 
first  to  make  up.  And  this  very  morning  they  had  had  trouble. 

"  It  began  because  breakfast  wasn't  ready,  and  the  fire  wouldn't 
burn;  and  they  had  said  hard  words,  both  of  them.  But  at  the  very 
last,  though  breakfast  had  not  been  fit  to  eat,  Jim  had  turned  round  at 
the  door  and  said: 

"  '  Gi'e  me  a  kiss,  lass.  You  know  you  love  me,  and  we  won't  part 
in  ill-blood/ 

"  'No,  Jimmy,  I  don't  love  you  !  *  I  said,  petulantly. 

" '  Gi'e  me  one  kiss,  lass/  pleaded  Jimmy. 

" '  No  not  one  !  and  now '  and  then  the  tears  rushed  to  her 

eyes.  With  awful  sobs  she  flung  her  arms  around  the  corpse.  [Tears 
in  the  audience.] 

" '  Dear  Jimmy  !  Darling  Jimmy,  speak  to  me  now/  she  moaned. 
'  Say  you  forgive  me  ! ' 

"  ' Do  not  grieve  so  hopelessly/  I  said;  'perhaps  Jimmy  knows  what 
you  feel  now/ 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH.  273 

"  But  the  mourner's  ears  were  deaf  to  all  comfort,  and  the  wailing 
cry  came  again  and  again : 

"  '  Oh,  if  I  had  only  spoke  to  him  fair  at  the  last !' 
************ 

"It  is  not  an  uncommon  story,  this.  "We  quarrel  with  those  we 
love,  and  part,  and  meet  and  make  up  again;  and  death  is  merciful;  and 
waits  till  we  are  at  peace;  yet  how  possible  is  just  such  an  experience  to 
any  one  of  us,  who  parts  with  some  dear  one  in  anger,  or  who  lets  the 
sun  go  down  upon  our  wrath ! 

"  But  it  is  always  the  noblest  nature,  the  most  loyal  heart,  which  is 
the  first  to  cry.  '  I  was  wrong;  forgive  ma/  "  [Applause.  ] 


GEORGE  W.   PECK. 


BIOGRAPHY   AND   REMINISCENCES. 

George  W.  Peck  was  born  in  Henderson,  Jefferson  county,  New  York,  in  1844. 
He  gave  his  services  to  his  country  in  the  last  war,  and  now  resides  in  Milwaukee,  in 
one  of  the  most  elegant  mansions  in  that  city.  He  has  a  lovely  wife,  whom  he 
worships  as  the  saints  worship  the  angels,  and  sons  growing  up,  of  whom  he  is  justly 
proud.  Mr.  Peck  has  published  three  books  which  have  had  an  immense  sale 
"Peck's "Sunshine,"  "Peck's  Fun"  and  "Peck's  Bad  Boy."  Mr.  Peck's  writings 
bubble  over  with  innocent  fun. 

Many  of  Mr.  Peck's  stories  are  true,  or  exaggerations  from, 
actual  scenes. 

The  humorist  tells  a  story  about  Senator  Barden,  of  "Wisconsin, 
which,  they  say,  actually  happened.  The  senator  is  a  very  plain, 
democratic-looking  man,  not  above  driving  a  dray  or  doing  any 
honest  work.  He  has  a  very  kind,  generous  heart,  and  is  always 
looking  after  the  comfort  of  other  people.  At  one  time,  as  Peck 
tells  the  story,  Senator  Barden  had  a  good  many  apples,  and  he 
thought  he  would  do  a  Christian  act  by  presenting  a  load  of  the 
delicious  fruit  to  his  family  clergyman,  a  new  man  from  the  East. 

"When  he  got  the  dray  loaded,  as  there  was  no  driver  at  hand, 
the  senator  jumped  on  the  load  and  drove  up  to  the  clergyman's 
house  with  the  apples. 

"  Now,"  he  said  to  himself,  "  this  is  a  sweet  Christian  thing  to 
do.  How  pleased  the  tired  clergyman  and  his  dear  wife  and  children 
will  be." 

Then  he  hurriedly  rolled  the  apples  through  the  gate.  They 
were  big,  beautiful  summer  pippins  and  red  cheeked  strawberries. 

"  Won't  the  parson  be  surprised,"  he  said,  with  a  laugh  all  over 
his  happy  face,  and  then  he  whipped  up  the  horse  and  tried  to  get 

275 


276  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

away  before  the  minister  had  time  to  thank  him.  Just  as  he  was 
about  to  drive  away,  the  door  opened  and  the  parson's  face  appeared. 
He  didn't  recognize  Senator  Barden  in  his  plain  clothes  and  with  his 
trousers  in  his  boots,  and,  being  in  a  hurry,  shouted : 

"  Hello  you  there !  Drayman ! " 

The  senator  turned  around. 

"  "Who  are  those  apples  for  ?  " 

"  For  the  parson,"  replied  the  senator,  modestly. 

"  What  are  you  leaving  them  out  in  the  yard  for  then  ? " 

The  surprised  senator  was  so  struck  with  wonder  that  he  made 
no  reply. 

"  Look  here,  you  fellow,"  screamed  the  parson,  "  if  those  apples 
are  for  me,  you  just  put  'em  in  the  cellar.  Do  you  hear  ? " 

"  I'm  in  a  little  of  a  hurry  now,"  said  the  senator,  "  and " 

"Hurry  or  no  hurry,"  interrupted  the  parson,  "you  put  those 
apples  in.  Tou  draymen  don't  know  your  business.  You  hear 
me?" 

The  senator  stood  still  in  astonishment. 

"  I  say,  man,"  yelled  the  parson,  "  if  you  don't  roll  those  apples 
iii  the  cellar,  I  won't  accept  them.  I  won't  be  imposed  on.  I " 

"  All  right,"  said  the  senator,  recovering  from  his  astonishment, 
while  his  hair  began  to  rise  up  with  indignation,  "  you  won't  have 
to  accept  them  then,"  and  he  jumped  off  the  dray,  threw  the  two 
barrels  of  apples  on,  and  drove  off,  saying  to  himself : 

"  Darn  a  clergyman,  anyway.  He  hain't  got  good  horse  sense, 
and,  b'gosh,  if  he  can't  be  polite,  he  can  eat  wormy  dried  apples 
all  winter." 

That  night,  when  the  clergyman  found  out  his  mistake,  he  was  in 
such  a  hurry  to  apologize  to  the  senator  that  he  cut  his  sermon 
twenty  minutes  short. 

"  The  moral  of  this,"  said  Mr.  Peck,  "  is  this :  Never  despise  an 
honest  "Wisconsin  senator  because  he  wears  a  ragged  coat,  for  he 
may  be  an  angel  in  disguise."  , 


WON'T  THE  PARSON  BE  SURPRISED. 


See  page  275. 


GEORGE  W.  PECK. 


The  above  is  an  autograph  letter  from  George  "W.  Peck  —  a 
characteristic  letter. 


GEOKGE  W.  PEGK-'S  LECTURE. 

Brother  Agriculturists  :  *  —  I  say  to  the  farmers  of  the  United  States 
that  agriculture  is  one  of  the  noblest  pursuits.  I  love  the  man  who  pur- 
sues agriculture,  but  I  do  not  love  the  lightning-rod  man,  the  Bohe- 
mian-oat man,  and  the  patent-churn  man  who  pursue  the  agriculturist. 
[Laughter.]  It  is  painful  to  see  the  noble  farmer  pursuing  agriculture 
and  the  sheriff  and  Bohemian-oat  man  pursuing  the  farmer. 

What  we  farmers  want,  is  to  have  our  rights  protected.  Yes,  pro- 
tected !  To  gain  this  protection  we  must  look  to  the  legislative  power. 
They  must  pnt,s  laws  in  our  favor.  The  farmers  toil  early  and  late,  and 
what  do  they  get  for  their  recompense  ?  I  have  known  a  farmer  to  get 
up  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  help  up  a  calf  that  had  got  cast  in 
the  barn,  and  the  very  first  thing  that  calf  did  was  to  kick  the  gran- 
ger's knee  out  of  joint,  when  there  was  a  hired  man  standing  near  that 
the  calf  could  have  kicked.  [Laughter.] 

*  Mr.  Peck's  lecture,  "  How  I  Subdued  the  Rebellion,"  a  highly  republican  lecture,  was 
first  "  set  up  "  for  this  book,  but  when  Mr.  Peck  was  elected  by  the  Democrats  mayorof 
Milwaukee,  and  had  one  eye  on  the  governorship,  his  republican  lecture  was  suppressed  and 
this  lecture,  calculated  to  catch  the  votes  of  the  farmers,  was  substituted.  M.  D.  L. 


278  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

What  we  want,  I  say,  is  protection  against  calves  and  railroads. 
[Laughter.] 

I  say,  and  without  fear  of  contradiction,  it  is  just  such  unjust  discrim- 
inations by  calves  and  railroads  that  is  ruining  our  agricultural  inter- 
ests. This  is  not  an  isolated  case.  The  woods  are  full  of  them.  Why 
stand  we  here  idle  and  see  the  bone  and  sinew  of  our  land  kicked  around 
by  such  soulless  corporations  as  railroads  and  calves. 

Let  us  have  their  hides  on  the  fence.     [Laughter.] 

We  do  not  want  protection  against  foreign  wool,  but  we  do  want 
protection  against  our  own  rams. 

Sheep  raising,  I  believe,  does  not  pay  the  average  farmer. 

You  farmers  devote  a  good  deal  of  time  and  labor  to  the  raising  of 
sheep,  and  what  do  you  get  for  it.  The  best  sheep  can  not  lay  more  than 
eight  pounds  of  wool  in  a  season,  and  even  if  you  get  fifty  cents  a  pound 
for  it,  you  have  not  got  any  great  bonanza.  Now,  the  State  encourages 
the  raising  of  wolves,  by  offering  a  bounty  of  ten  dollars  for  a  piece  of  skin 
off  the  head  of  each  wolf.  It  does  not  cost  any  more  to  raise  a  wolf,  than 
it  does  to  raise  a  sheep,  [laughter]  and  while  sheep  rarely  raise  more 
than  two  lambs  a  year,  a  pair  of  good  wolves  are  liable  to  raise  twenty 
young  ones  in  the  course  of  a  year,  if  it  is  a  good  year  for  wolves. 
[Laughter.]  In  addition  to  the  encouragement  offered  by  the  State, 
many  counties  give  as  much  more,  so  that  one  wolf  scalp  will  bring  more 
money  than  five  sheep.  You  will  readily  see  that  our  wise  legislators  are 
offering  inducements  to  you,  that  you  should  be  thankful  for.  You  can 
establish  a  wolf  orchard  on  any  farm,  and  with  a  pair  of  good  wolves  to 
start  on,  there  is  millions  in  it. 

Farmers  raise  wolves  !     [Laughter.] 

I  do  not  favor  the  raising  of  watermelons  in  cold  latitudes — espe- 
cially the  ordinary  tropical  melons. 

What  the  country  needs  is  a  melon  with  fur  on  it,  for  cold  latitudes 
and  from  which  the  incendiary  ingredients  have  been  removed.  It  seems 
to  me  that  by  proper  care,  when  the  melon  is  growing  on  the  vines,  the 
cholera  morbus  can  be  decreased,  at  least,  the  same  as  the  cranberry  has 
been  improved,  by  cultivation.  [Laughter.] 

The  experiment  of  planting  homeopathic  pills  in  the  hill  with  the 
melon  has  been  tried,  but  homeopathy,  while  perhaps  good  in  certain 
cases,  does  not  seem  to  reach  the  seat  of  disease  in  the  watermelon. 
What  I  would  advise,  and  the  advice  is  free  to  all,  is  that  a  porous  plaster 
be  placed  upon  watermelons,  just  as  they  are  beginning  to  ripen,  with  a 
view  to  draw  out  the  cholera  morbus.  [Laughter.]  A  mustard  plaster 
might  have  the  same  effect,  but  the  porous  plaster  seems  to  me  to  be  the 


GEORGE  W.  PECK.  275 

article  to  fill  a  want  long  felt.  If,  by  this  means,  a  breed  of  watermelon 
can  be  raised  that  will  not  strike  terror  to  the  heart  of  the  consumer, 
this  agricultural  address  will  not  have  been  delivered  in  vain. 

An  Eastern  scientist  has  discovered  that  cucumbers  contain  tape 
worms.  Then  all  we  have  to  say  is  that  farmers  are  selling  their  tape 
worms  mighty  high.  Twenty  cents  for  a  cucumber  not  bigger  than  a 
clothes-pin,  that  can't  possibly  contain  tape  worm  enough  to  go  around 
in  a  small  family,  is  outrageous.  But,  is  there  anything  that  you  raise 
on  your  farm,  that  does  not  contain  something  bad,  except  the  bologna 
sausage?  [Laughter.] 

Again  some  of  our  Wisconsin  agriculturists  are  asking : 

Why  not  go  to  raising  elephants? 

A  good  elephant  will  sell  for  eight  thousand  dollars.  A  pair  of  ele- 
phants can  be  bought  by  a  community  of  farmers  pooling  their  issues 
and  getting  a  start,  and  in  a  few  years  every  farm  can  be  a  menagerie  of 
its  own,  and  every  year  we  can  rake  in  from  eight  to  twenty-four  thou- 
sand dollars  from  the  sale  of  surplus  elephants.  It  may  be  said  that 
elephants  are  hearty  feeders,  and  that  they  would  go  through  an  ordi- 
nary farmer  in  a  short  time.  Well,  they  can  be  turned  out  into  the 
highway  to  browse,  and  earn  their  own  living.  This  elephant  theory  is 
a  good  one,  and  any  man  that  is  good  on  figures  can  sit  down  and  figure 
up  a  pro  fit  in  a  year  sufficient  to  go  into  bankruptcy.  [Laughter.] 

Would  I  advise  the  farmer  to  raise  fish? 

I  say,  emphatically,  yes.  I  would  suggest  that  you  permit  the  subject 
of  the  artificial  hatching  of  fish  to  engage  your  attention,  and  that  you 
petition  the  legislature  to  appropriate  several  dollars  to  purchase  whale's 
eggs,  vegetable  oysters  and  mock  turtle  seeds.  [Laughter.]  The  hatch- 
ing of  fish  is  easy,  and  any  man  can  soon  learn  it;  and  it  is  a  branch  of 
industry  that  many  who  are  now  out  of  employment,  owing  to  circum- 
stances beyond  their  control,  [laughter]  will  be  glad  to  avail  themselves 
of.  How,  I  ask  you,  could  means  better  be  adapted  to  the  ends  than  for 
the  retiring  officers  of  our  State  to  go  to  setting  on  fish  eggs?  [Laughter.] 

When  should  fish  be  eaten? 

This  question  has  often  been  asked  by  the  agricultural  newspaper. 
This  is  easily  answered  by  the  scientists  among  our  farmers.  Fish  should 
be  eaten  at  meal  time.  [Laughter.] 

Fish  without  bones  are  the  best  to  raise  and  the  easiest  to  eat.  Many 
farmers  eat  the  largest  bones  of  the  largest  fish.  This  is  a  mistake. 
Nothing  appears  so  much  out  of  place  as  to  see  a  farmer  in  business  hours 
walking  along  the  street  picking  pickerel  bones  out  of  the  sides  of  his 
neck.  [Laughter.  ] 


280  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

There  is  but  one  other  sadder  sight  than  this,  and  that  is,  to  see  an 
old  maid  in  a  street  car,  her  lap  full  of  bundles,  an  umbrella  in  one 
hand,  and  a  pet  dog  under  her  arm,  and  the  lady  trying  to  eat  a  juicy 
pear  with  a  double  set  of  false  teeth  that  are  loose.  [Laughter.] 

The  subject  of  the  artificial  propagation  of  fish,  by  the  farmer,  has 
arrested  the  attention  of  many  of  the  ablest  minds  of  the  country,  and 
the  results  of  experiments  have  been  thus  far  so  satisfactory  that  it  is 
almost  safe  to  predict  that  within  the  next  ten  centuries  every  farmer, 
however  poor,  may  pick  bull-heads  off  of  his  crab  apple  vines,  and 
gather  his  winter  supply  of  fresh  shad  from  his  sweet  potato  trees  at 
less  than  fifty  cents  a  pound.  [Laughter.]  The  experiments  that  have 
been  made  in  our  own  State,  warrant  us  in  going  largely  into  the  fish 
business.  A  year  ago,  a  quantity  of  fish  seeds  were  sub-soil  plowed  into 
the  ice  of  Lake  Mendota  by  a  careful  farmer,  and  to-day,  I  am  informed, 
that  the  summer  boarders  there  have  all  the  fish  to  eat  that  any  reason- 
able man  could  desire.  The  expense  is  small  and  the  returns  are 
enormous.  It  is  estimated  that  from  the  six  quarts  of  fish  seeds  that  were 
planted  in  the  lake,  there  are  now  ready  for  the  market,  at  least, 
11,000,000  car  loads  of  brain-producing  food,  if  you  spit  on  your  bait 
when  you  go  fishing.  [Loud  laughter.] 

Fish  are  nourishing  food  for  the  farmer.  Then  he  knows  what  he  is 
eating.  The  bones  identify  the  fish.  Now,  a  Racine  farmer,  who  had 
been  consuming  large  quantities  of  Chicago  tenderloin,  investigated  his 
beefsteak,  and  found  that  it  was  a  fried  liver  pad  that  a  former  summer 
boarder  had  pawned  for  his  board.  The  farmer  didn't  want  to  lose  it, 
so  he  had  it  cooked.  A  liver  pad,  if  nicely  cooked,  is  fine  eating,  with 
mushrooms,  but,  of  course — well,  this  is  an  isolated  case.  [Laughter.] 

I  have  been  asked  by  several  Oshkosh  agriculturists  if  seed  corn 
should  be  frozen.  "Does  it  hurt  the  ears  to  freeze  them?"  This  is  a 
mooted  question.  I  can  only  answer  the  question  by  telling  an  anec- 
dote. 

"A  young  Boscobel  farmer  and  his  girl  went  out  sleighing  one  day, 
and  returned  with  a  frozen  ear.  [Laughter.]  There  is  nothing  very 
startling  in  the  simple  fact  of  a  frozen  ear,  but  the  idea  is  that  it  was  the 
ear  next  to  the  girl  that  he  was  foolish  enough  to  let  freeze."  [Laugh- 
ter.] A  "Wisconsin  girl  that  will  go  out  sleigh-riding  with  a  young 
man  and  allow  his  ears  to  freeze  is  no  gentleman,  and  ought  to  be 
arrested.  Why,  in  Milwaukee,  on  the  coldest  days,  I  have  seen  a  young 
man  out  riding  with  a  girl,  and  his  ears  were  so  hot  they  would  fairly 
"sis,"  and  there  was  not  a  man  driving  on  the  avenue  but  would  have 
changed  places  with  the  young  man,  and  allowed  his  ears  to  cool. 


,       GEORGE  W.  PECK.  281 

[Laughter.]     No,  Wisconsin  girls  can  not  sit  too  close  during  winter 
weather.     This  climate  is  rigorous.    [Loud  laughter.] 

Shall  farmers  spend  their  money  for  costly  farm  machinery? 

This  is  a  grave  question.  Millions  of  dollars,  I  understand,  have  been 
paid  out  by  Wisconsin  farmers  to  buy  a  new  invention  called  a  "  cat 
tease r."  This  they  put  on  fences  to  keep  cats  from  sitting  there  and 
singing.  It  consists  of  a  three-cornered  piece  of  tin,  nailed  on  the  top 
of  the  fence.  We  hope  none  of  our  farmer  friends  will  continue  to 
invest  in  the  patent,  for  statistics  show  that  while  cats  very  often  sit  on 
fences  to  meditate,  yet,  when  they  get  it  all  meditated  and  get  ready  to 
sing  a  duet,  they  get  down  off  the  fence  and  get  under  a  currant  bush. 
[Laughter.]  We  challenge  any  cat  scientist  to  disprove  the  assertion. 
[Loud  laughter.]  .  - 

The  question  often  comes  up  "shall the  farmer  be  educated ?" 

I  have  given  this  question  much  thought,  and  am  unable  to  decide  it. 
I  read  yesterday  that  a  very  ignorant  man,  unable  to  read  or  write,  has 
lately  died  in  Cincinnati,  leaving  an  estate  of  $250,000  in  steamboats 
and  things.  What  a  lesson  this  circumstance  is  to  those  farmers  who 
will  fritter  away  their  time  learning  to  read  and  write,  when  they  might 
be  laying  up  steamboats  for  their  heirs  and  assigns.  [Laughter.] 

Knowledge  is  power,  but  steamboats  are  powerer.     [Laughter.] 

The  poor  farmer  has  many  trying  moments.  There  are  times  when 
he  requires  fortitude — and  when  he  should  be  as  bold  as  Peter  the 
Hermit.  There  is  one  especial  moment  in  the  life  of  a  young  farmer, 
however  humble  or  however  exalted,  when  he  feels  the  humiliation  of 
his  position,  and  blushes  at  what  is  expected  of  him.  A  moment  when 
he  feels  as  though  he  would  prefer  to  transact  the  business  before  him 
through  an  agent.  A  time  when  his.  soul  would  fain  throw  off  its  fet- 
ters, and  he  feels  it  to  be  a  moral  impossibility  for  him  to  go  through 
the  task  assigned  to  him,  when  he  feels  that  he  would  almost  rather  die, 
if  he  were  satisfied  he  were  good  enough.  That  time  is  when  he  has  to 
go  into  a  store  and  inquire  of  the  gentlemanly  clerk  if  he  has  got  any 
fine-tooth  combs.  [Laughter.]  He  looks  around  carefully  to  see  that 
no  one  is  listening,  and  asks  for  the  harrowing  instrument  of  torture, 
but  is  careful  to  tell  the  clerk  that  it  is  dandruff  that  is  the  matter. 
[Laughter.] 

A  serious  question,  fraught  with  great  interest  to  the  farmer,  is  now 
being  discussed  by  the  Farmers'  Alliance  throughout  our  country.  It 
is  a  touching  subject,  and  I  approach  it  with  almost  reverential  awe. 
Still,  in  an  address  to  the  agriculturists  of  the  whole  country,  1  can  not 
remain  silent  on  the  great  question. 
19 


282  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AJfD  PULPIT. 

This  question  is,  shall  farmers  employ  female  doctors? 

I  should  say,  in  answer  to  this  great  question,  that  a  farmer,  if  there 
was  nothing  the  matter  with  him,  might  call  in  a  female  doctor; 
[laughter]  but  if  he  was  sick  as  a  horse — and  when  a  man  is  sick,  he  is 
sick  as  a  horse — the  last  thing  he  would  have  around  would  be  a  female 
doctor,  and  why?  Because  when  a  man  wants  a  female  fumbling  around 
he  wants  to  feel  well,  [Laughter.]  He  don't  want  to  be  bilous,  or 
feverish,  with  his  mouth  tasting  like  cheese,  and  his  eyes  bloodshot, 
when  a  female  is  looking  over  him  and  taking  an  account  of  stock. 

Of  course  these  female  doctors  are  all  young  and  good  looking,  and 
if  one  of  them  came  into  a  sick  room  where  a  farmer  was  in  bed,  and  he 
had  chills,  and  was  as  cold  as  a  wedge,  and  she  should  sit  up  close  to  the 
side  of  the  bed,  and  take  hold  of  his  hand,  his  pulse  would  run  up  to  a 
hundred  and  fifty  and  she  would  prescribe  for  a  fever  when  he  had  chil- 
blains. Then  if  he  died  she  could  be  arrested  for  malpractice.  0,  you 
can't  fool  us  farmers  on  female  doctors.  [Laughter.] 

A  farmer  who  has  been  sick  and  has  had  male  doctors,  knows  just 
how  he  would  feel  to  have  a  female  doctor  come  tripping  in  and  throw 
her  fur-lined  cloak  over  a  chair,  take  off  her  hat  and  gloves,  and  throw 
them  on  a  lounge,  and  come  up  to  the  bed  with  a  pair  o^  marine  blue 
eyes,  with  a  twinkle  in  the  ccrner,  and  look  him  in  the  wi  ^  changeable 
eyes,  and  ask  him  to  run  out  his  tongue.  Suppose  he  kne  his  tongue 
was  coated  so  it  looked  like  a  yellow  Turkish  towel,  do  you  suppose  he 
would  want  to  run  out  five  or  six  inches  of  the  lower  end  of  it,  and  let 
that  female  doctor  put  her  finger  on  it,  to  see  how  it  was  furred?  Xot 
much!  He  would  put  that  tongue  up  into  his  cheek,  and  wouldn't  let 
her  see  it  for  twenty-five  cents  admission.  [Laughter.] 

We  have  all  seen  doctors  put  their  hands  under  the  bed  clothes  and 
feel  a  farmer's  feet  to  see  if  they  were  cold.  If  a  female  doctor  should 
do  that,  it  would  give  a  farmer  cramps  in  the  legs.  [Laughter.] 

A  male  doctor  can  put  his  hand  on  a  farmer's  stomach,  and  liver,  and 
lungs,  and  ask  him  if  he  feels  any  pain  there;  but  if  a  female  doctor 
should  do  the  same  thing  it  would  make  him  sick,  and  he  would 
want  to  get  up  and  kick  himself  for  employing  a  female  doctor.  0, 
there  is  no  use  talking,  it  would  kill  a  farmer — a  female  doctor  would! 

Now,  suppose  a  farmer  had  heart  disease,  and  a  female  doctor  should 
want  to  listen  to  the  beating  of  his  heart.  She  would  lay  her  left  ear  on 
his  left  breast,  so  her  eyes  and  rosebud  mouth  would  be  looking  right 
into  his  face,  and  her  wavy  hair  would  be  scattered  all  around  there,  get- 
ting tangled  in  the  buttons  of  his  night  shirt.  Don't  you  suppose  his 
heart  would  get  in  about  twenty  extra  beats  to  the  minute?  You  bet! 


GEORGE  W.  PECK  283 

And  she  would  smile  —  we  will  bet  ten  dollars  she  would  smile — and 
show  her  pearly  teeth^  and  her  red  lips  would  he  working  as  though  she 
were  counting  the  beats,  and  he  would  think  she  was  trying  to  whisper 
to  him,  and [Laughter.] 

Well,  what  would  he  be  doing  all  this  time?  If  he  was  not  dead  yet, 
which  would  be  a  wonder,  his  left  hand  would  brush  the  hair  away 
from  her  temple,  and  his  right  hand  would  get  sort  of  nervous  and  move 
around  to  the  back  of  her  head,  and  when  she  had  counted  the  heart 
beats  a  few  minutes  and  was  raising  her  head,  he  would  draw  the  head 
up  to  him  and  kiss  her  once  for  luck,  if  he  was  as  bilous  as  a  Jersey 
swamp  angel,  and  have  her  charge  it  in  the  bill;  and  then  a  reaction 
would  set  in,  and  he  would  be  as  weak  as  a  cat,  and  she  would  have  to 
fan  him  and  rub  his  head  until  he  got  over  being  nervous,  and  then 
make  out  her  prescription  after  he  got  asleep.  No;  all  of  a  man's  symp- 
toms change  when  a  female  doctor  is  practicing  on  him,  and  she  would 
kill  him  dead. 

These  woman  colleges  are  doing  a  great  wrong  in  preparing  these 
female  doctors  for  the  war  path,  and  we  desire  to  enter  a  protest  in 
behalf  of  twenty  million  farmers  who  could  not  stand  the  pressure. 
[Loud  laughter.] 

You  farmers  write  and  expect  me  to  give  you  reliable  farm  informa- 
tion. You  expect  me  to  tell  you  what  to  raise,  when  to  raise  and  how  to 
raise  it.  The  Farmers'  Alliance  asks,  when  should  a  man  raise  horses?  In 
answering  this  I  will  say  that  I  always  raise  horses  just  seven  years  ago. 
[Laughter.]  That  is  always  a  great  year  for  colts — that  seven  years  ago. 
[Laughter.]  Horses  raised  before  or  since  may  be  good  horses  but  no 
one  wants  them.  Occasionally  some  one  sells  a  six -year-old  horse,  but  it 
does  not  often  occur,  unless  the  buyer  insists  upon  that  age;  and  then  a 
thrifty  farmer  can  generally  accommodate  him.  [Laughter.] 

Now  us  farmers  who  lived  around  here  seven  years  ago  did  not  have 
our  attention  called  to  the  fact  that  the  country  was  flooded  with  colts. 
There  were  very  few  twin  colts,  and  it  was  seldom  that  a  mother  had 
half  a  dozen  colts  following  her.  Farmers  and  stock-raisers  did  not  go 
round  worrying  about  xwhat  they  were  going  to  do  with  so  many  colts. 
The  papers,  if  we  recollect  right,  were  not  filled  with  accounts  of  the 
extraordinary  number  of  colts  born.  And  yet  you  see  it  must  have  been 
a  terrible  year  for  colts,  because  there  are  only  six  horses  in  Milwaukee 
that  are  over  seven  years  old.  One  of  them  was  found  to  have  been 
pretty  well  along  in  years  when  he  worked  for  an  Oshkosh  farmer,  in  1848 
and  finally  the  farmer  who  had  a  poor  memory,  owned  up  that  he  was 
mistaken  twenty-six  years.  What  a  mortality  there  must  have  been  among 


284  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

horses  that  would  now  be  eight,  nine  or  ten  years  old.  There  are  none 
of  them  left.  And  a  year  from  now,  when  our  present  stock  of  horses 
would  naturally  be  eight  years  old  they  will  all  be  dead,  and  a  new  lot  of 
seven-year  old  horses  will  take  their  places.  It  is  singular,  but  it  is 
true.  That  is,  it  is  true  unless  farmers  and  horse  dealers  lie,  and  I  would 
be  slow  to  charge  so  grave  a  crime  upon  a  useful  and  enterprising  class 
of  citizens.  No,  it  can  not  be,  and  yet,  farmers,  don't  it  seem  peculiar 
that  all  the  horses  in  this  broad  land  are  seven  years  old  this  spring: 
We  leave  this  subject  for  the  farmers  of  the  land  to  wonder  over. 

In  the  meantime  continue  to  hire  your  colts  born  just  seven  year* 
ago.  [Loud  applause.] 

Another  want  of  the  farmer  is  a  farm  currency.  We  want  it  fixed  by 
the  Treasury  Department  so  we  can  make  change  easily. 

What  we  want  is  a  currency  that  every  farmer  can  issue  for  himself. 
A  law  should  be  passed  making  the  products  of  the  farm  a  legal  tender 
for  all  debts,  public  and  private,  including  duties  on  imports,  interest 
on  the  public  debt,  and  contributions  for  charitable  purposes.  Then 
we  shall  have  a  new  money  table  about  as  follows: 

Ten  ears  of  corn  make  one  cent. 

Ten  cucumbers  make  one  dime. 

Ten  watermelons  make  one  dollar. 

Ten  bushels  of  wheat  make  one  eagle. 

Arise  and  sing! 


CHAUNCEY   M.   DEPEW. 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

Chauncey  M.  Depew  was  born  on  a  farm  near  Poughkeepeie  in  1833.  He  came 
of  poor  but  respectable  parents.  When  a  boy  he  worked  on  the  farm,  and  the  great 
railroad  magnate,  who  now  makes  presidents,  talks  politics  with  Gladstone  and 
jokes  with  the  Prince  of  Wales,  has  many  a  time  driven  the  cows  home  in  the  rain. 
Mr.  Depew  graduated  at  Yale  College,  studied  law,  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  and 
afterward  became  President  of  the  great  New  York  Central  Railroad.  His  aim  in 
life  seems  to  be  to  make  everybody  happy.  He  is  democratic  in  all  his  ways,  takes 
every  man  by  the  hand,  is  loved  at  the  Union  League  Club  and  is  the  honored  guest 
of  the  St.  Patrick,  St.  Andrews  and  New  England  Societies.  Depew,  Horace  Por- 
ter and  Ingersoll  are  perhaps  the  best  after-dinner  speakers  of  the  age,  and 
Depew  is  perhaps  the  best  "  all  around  "  extemporaneous  speaker  in  this  country. 

Mr.  Depew  has  an  eye  like  an  eagle  and  a  smile  which  throws  sun- 
shine all  around  him.  He  is  never  too  busy  to  see  a  friend,  even  if  he 
has  to  say  "  hail  and  farewell "  in  the  same  breath.  I  say  never  too 
busy,  but  I  now  remember  calling  on  him  once  when  he  sent  out  word 
that  he  was  engaged  with  two  railroad  presidents  and  could  see  no  one 
— "  not  even  on  business." 

I  told  the  boy  to  tell  Mr.  Depew  that  I  hadn't  any  business  at 
all,  only  a  new  joke. 

"All  right,  Eli,"  said  Mr.  Depew,  laughing  through  the  door, 
"  come  right  in.  But  first,"  he  said,  "  let  me  tell  you  my  dog  story. 

"  When  I  was  about  fourteen  years  old,  my  father  lived  on  the 
old  farm  up  at  Poughkeepsie.  One  day,  after  I  had  finished  a  five- 
acre  field  of  corn,  my  father  let  me  go  to  town  to  see  a  circus. 
While  in  town  I  saw  for  the  first  time  a  spotted  coach  dog.  It  took 
my  fancy,  and  I  bought  it  and  took  it  home.  When  father  saw  it, 
his  good  old  Puritan  face  fell. 


286  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"'Why,  Chauncey,'  he  said  sadly,  'we  don't  want  any  spotted 
dog  on  the  farm — he'll  drive  the  cattle  crazy. ' 

"No,  he  won't,  father,"  said  Chauncey,  proudly ;  "he's  a  blooded 
dog." 

"  '  The  next  da}T,"  said  Mr.  Depew, "  it  was  raining,  and  I  took  the 
dog  out  into  the  woods  to  try  him  on  a  coon,  but  the  rain  was 
too  much  for  him.  It  washed  the  spots  off.  That  night  I  took  the 
dog  back  to  the  dog-dealer,  with  a  long  face.  Said  I :  '  Look  at  that 
dog  sir ;  the  spots  have  all  washed  off.' 

" '  Great  guns,  boy ! '  exclaimed  the  dog-dealer, '  there  was  an  um- 
brella went  with  that  dog.  Didn't  you  get  the  umbrella  ?"' 

Mr.  Depew's  father  was  a  very  frugal  farmer  and  also  a  very 
pious  man.  lie  never  liked  to  have  any  time  wasted  in  the  prayer- 
meeting.  One  night,  when  the  experiences  had  all  been  told,  and 
the  exhortations  flagged,  and  the  prayers  grew  feeble,  Brother 
Depew  arose  and  solemmly  remarked  : 

"  I  don't  like  to  see  the  time  wasted — Brother  Joslyn,  can't  you 
tell  your  experience?" 

Brother  Josyln  said  he'd  told  his  experience  twice  already. 

"Then  Brother  Finney can't  you  make  a  prayer  or  tell  }^our 
experience  ?" 

"I've  told  it  several  times  to-night,  brother." 

"  Well  my  brethern,"  said  Mr.  Depew,  "  as  the  regular  exercises 
to-night  seem  to  halt  a  little,  and  as  no  one  seems  to  want  to  pray  or 
tell  his  experience,  I  will  improve  the  time  by  making  a  few  obser- 
vations on  the  tariff." 

I  was  talking  one  day  with  Mr.  Depew  about  demand  and  sup- 
ply. I  said  the  price  of  any  commodity  is  always  controlled  by  the 
demand  and  supply. 

"Not  always,  Eli,"  said  Mr.  Depew,  "demand  and  supply  don't 
always  govern  prices.  Business  tact  sometimes  governs  them." 

"  When,"  I  asked,  "  did  an  instance  ever  occur,  when  the  price 
did  not  depend  on  demand  and  supply  ?" 

"Well"  said  Mr.  Depew, "  the  other  day  I  stepped  up  to  a  German 
butcher,  and  out  of  curiosity  asked  : 

"  What's  the  price  of  sausages  ?" 

"  Dwenty  cents  a  bound,"  he  said. 

"  You  asked  twenty-five  this  morning,"  I  replied. 


HE'S  A  BLOODED  DOG. 


See  page  280. 


CHAUNCET  M.  DEPEW.  287 

"Ya,  dot  vas  ven  I  had  some.  Now  I  ain'd  got  none  I  sells  him 
for  dwendy  cends.  Dot  makes  me  a  rebutation  for  selling  cheab  und 
I  don'd  lose  noddings." 

"  You  see,  "  said  Depew  laughing,  "  I  didn't  want  any  sausage 
and  the  man  didn't  have  any — no  demand  or  supply,  and  still  the 
price  of  sausage  went  down." 

I  was  talking  to  Mr.  Depew  one  day  about  his  going  out  to  din- 
ner so  much. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  do  go  out  a  good  deal." 

"  But  how  can  you  stand  it?  I  should  think  it  would  give  you 
dyspepsia.  I  suppose  you  can  eat  every  thing?" 

"  No,  there  are  two  things  which  I  always  positively  refuse  to  eat 
for  dinner,"  said  Mr.  Depew,  gravely. 

"  And  what  are  they  ?" 

"  "Why  breakfast  and  supper." 

"  But  the  great  crowds  you  have  to  face  in  heated  rooms,  they 
must  wear  on  you  ?"  I  said. 

"But  the  crowded  dining  room,"  said  Mr.  Depew,  "is  more 
healthful  than  a  funeral.  Now,  I  have  a  friend  in  Poughkeepsie 
who  goes  out  more  than  I  do,  but  he  goes  to  funerals.  He  never 
misses  one.  He  enjoys  a  good  funeral  better  than  the  rest  of  us 
enjoy  a  dinner. 

"  I  remember  one  day  how  I  attended  a  funeral  with  my  Pough- 
keepsie friend  over  in  Dutchess  county.  The  house  was  packed. 
The  people  came  for  miles  around — and  everybody  came  to  mourn 
too.  Many  eyes  were  wet,  and  some  good  old  farmers  who  had  never 
seen  the  deceased  except  at  a  distance,  groaned  and  shed  real  tears. 
After  we  had  crowded  our  way  in  amongst  the  mourners,  I  turned 
to  my  friend  and  said: 

"  'George,  I  don't  see  the  coffin — where  is  it  ?' 

"  But  George  couldn't  answer. 

"After  a  while  I  made  a  remark  to  my  friend  about  a  lovely 
eight-day  standing  clock  in  the  hall. 

" '  The  clock !'  said  George,  mournfully,  '  why  that  isn't  a  clock, 
that's  the  coffin.  They've  stood  him  up  in  the  hall  to  make  room 
for  the  mourners  !' " 

Mr.  Depew  has  a  well-balanced  brain.  There  are  no  streaks  of 
insanity  in  the  Depew  family.  Once,  while  conversing  with  Dr. 
Hammond,  our  witty  ex-surgeon-general,  about  insanity,  I  asked 
him  how  incipient  insanity  could  be  detected. 


288  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  One  infallible  test,"  said  the  Doctor,  "  is  to  get  a  good  joke  on 
a  man — a  real  good  one — and  if  he  laughs  at  it,  it  is  a  sure  sign  that 
his  mind  is  evenly  balanced.  An  insane  man  never  laughs  at  a  good 
joke  on  himself.  He  always  gets  enraged.  Insanity  always  begins 
in  egotism.  Guiteau,  the  crazy  man  who  shot  Garfield,  laughed  at 
his  own  jokes  all  through  the  trial,  but  when  the  prosecuting  attor- 
ney got  a  joke  on  him,  his  insanity  showed  itself  in  flashing  eyes 
and  a  scowl  of  indignation." 

After  my  conversation  with  Dr.  Hammond,  1  met  Sam  Cox  at 
the  Fifth  Avenue  hotel  and  told  him  about  Hammond's  theory. 

"  Let's  go  over  to  Madison  Square, "  said  Sam,  "  and  try  the  the- 
ory on  George  Francis  Train." 

"  Good, "  I  said,  and  we  were  soon  in  the  garden  talking  to  the 
great  George  Francis,  who  sat  on  a  bench  surrounded  by  his  usual 
crowd  of  children.  Train  is  a  vegetarian,  and  he  was  soon  talking 
on  his  favorite  subject. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  am  a  vegetarian.  Vegetables  give  strength. 
They  give  muscle ;  "  and  then  he  held  up  his  clenched  fist  and  grad- 
ually opened  it  to  show  the  flow  of  red  blood  to  the  palm. 

"  See ! "  said  Train,  "  that  blood  and  muscle  come  from  a  veg- 
etable diet." 

"Yes,"  said  Cox,  "j^ouare  right  George.  Vegetables  do  give 
muscle  and  health.  I  notice  that  all  the  strong  animals  eat  vegeta- 
bles. There  is  the  sturdy  lion,  he  lives  on  vegetables — and  the 
leopard  and  tiger  too;  that's  what  makes  them  so  strong.  But 
sheep  and  geese,  live  on  meat  that  is  what  makes  them  so  weak 
and—" 

"  I  don't  want  to  talk  to  a  darn  foolj  "  interrupted  Train  as  he 
strode  off  in  a  huff. 

Then  we  knew  George  Frances  was  insane. 

The  next  morning  I  met  Mr.  Depew  in  the  street  car  on  his  way 
to  the  Grand  Central  depot.  Remembering  Hammond's  insanity 
test,  I  said,  "  now  1  will  try  it  on  Depew,"  so  I  held  up  the  World 
and  exclaimed : 

"  I  see  there's  a  washout  on  the  Central !  " 

"A  what?" 

"  A  washout." 

"  A  dangerous  washout  ? " 

"Not  very." 


JEFF£BSON  VJStB, 
BENJ.  £, 


csas;  vr.  T,  SHERM^K. 
Gar. 


JtfiBT. 


CElf,  V.  R 
GES.  JOK£T  A,  10GAK, 
JASBS  O.  5I.AIKB-- 
KAMFTOMt 


CHA  UNVEY  M.  DEPEW.  289 

"  How  large  is  it  ?    I  haven't  seen  a  newspaper." 

"  O,  ten  shirts  and  four  pair  of  - 

But  Depew's  genial  laugh  drowned  the  sentence. 

"  Perfectly  sane,"  I  said  to  myself. 

One  night  I  was  lecturing  to  a  big  audience  in  Napoleon,  Ohio. 
The  lecture  committee  said  they  would  like  to  have  me  get  a  joke 

on  Judge ,  I  forget  his  name,  who  sat  in  a  front  seat.  So  when 

I  was  illustrating  the  difference  between  the  joke  and  the  anecdote, 
I  said : 

"The  joke  is  the  incident  itself;  the  anecdote  is  a  description 
of  it.  You  get  a  joke  on  a  man  —  a  description  of  it  appears  in  the 
newspaper  the  next  day;  that  is  an  anecdote.  Now, "  said  I,  "  to 
illustrate  the  difference  between  the  joke  and  the  anecdote — and 
this  is  a  very  important  illustration,  and  I  hope  the  young  people  in 
the  audience  will  remember  it — suppose  I  were  talking  about  a  fast 
horse  that  I  have ;  suppose  I  should  say  I  have  a  horse  that  could 
travel  from  Napoleon  to  Toledo,  a  distance  of  —  of 

" '  Twenty -six  miles,"  interrupted  the  Judge. 

"  "Well,  Judge,"  said  I,  "  if  you  know  more  about  this  lecture  than 
Ido- 

But  I  never  finished  the  sentence.  A  scream  of  laughter  came 
up  from  the  audience,  and  the  house  was  a  bedlam  for  several 
minutes. 

When  the  audience  had  settled  down,  I  said,  "  I  beg  the  Judge's 
pardon  for  answering  him  so  rudely,  for  it  was  very  kind  in 
him  to  tell  me  the  distance,  and  very  rude  and  ungentlemanly  for 
me  to  answer  him  so  bluntly,  but  the  fact  is,  I  had  just  told  the 
young  gentlemen  in  the  audience  that  I  would  illustrate  to  them 
the  difference  between  the  joke  and  the  anecdote,  and  in  a  way 
they  would  never  forget  it.  "  Now  this  is  a  joke,"  I  said.  "  To- 
morrow it  will  become  an  anecdote — a  dead  cold  anecdote.  It 
won't  produce  any  laughter  to-morrow,  and,  I  believe,  if  any  one 
should  go  to  the  Judge  to-morrow  and  ask  him  in  the  most  polite 
manner  the  distance  to  Toledo,  I  believe  he  would  pull  out  his 

revolver  and "  Another  scream  from  the  audience  drowned 

the  sentence. 

Well  it  was  all  very  well  that  night,  and  would  have  ended  in 
laughter  had  the  Judge  been  perfectly  sane,  but  he  had  incipient 
insanity,  egotism,  and  when  I  got  onto  the  train  the  next  morning, 


290  KINO 8  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

to  go  to  Toledo,  the  Judge  came  down  with  a  big  hickory  cane,  to 
chastise  me  for  the  joke. 

Five  months  after  this  the  Judge  went  to  an  insane  asylum. 
This  story  is  absolutely  true,  and  I  appeal  to  every  man,  woman  or 
child  in  Napoleon  to  substantiate  it. 

It  is  so  different  with  Depew.  A  good  story  on  anybody,  even 
at  the  expense  of  himself,  is  his  delight. 

The  day  after  his  return  from  Europe  the  last  time,  I  was  in 
Cornelius  Vanderbilt's  room,  in  the  Central  Railroad  office,  which  is 
next  to  Depew's,  and  told  him  a  little  story  about  Mr.  Depew's  ex- 
perience on  the  steamer.  I  didn't  know  that  the  great  original  was 
listening  to  the  story  through  the  half  open  door.  The  story  as 
told  by  the  brokers  in  the  street  ran  like  this : 

"  It  seems  that  every  evening,  on  the  '  City  of  Rome, '  a  dozen 
or  so  genial  passengers  clustered  in  the  smoking  saloon  to  tell  stories 
and  yarn  about  things  in  general.  Every  soul  save  one  in  the  party 
kept  his  end  up.  The  one  exceptional  member  of  the  party  did  not 
laugh  or  indicate  by  even  a  twinkle  of  the  eye  any  interest  in  the 
funniest  jokes,  and  was  as  silent  as  a,  door-knob  at  the  best  stories. 

"  This  conduct  began  to  nettle  Mr.  Depew  and  the  other  spirits, 
and  when  the  final  seance  came  around  they  had  lost  all  patience 
with  the  reticent  and  unresponsive  stranger.  Mr.  Depew  was  finally 
selected  to  bring  him  to  terms.  They  were  all  comfortably  seated 
and  in  came  the  stranger. 

"  '  See  here,  my  dear  sir,' "  said  Mr.  Depew,  "  '  won't  you  tell  a 
story  ? ' " 

"  '  I  never  told  one  in  my  life.' " 

" « Sing  a  song  ? ' " 

"'Can't  sing.'" 

" '  Know  any  jokes  ? '  "  persisted  Mr.  Depew. 

" « No.' " 

"  Mr.  Depew  and  all  were  prepared  to  give  it  up  when  the 
stranger  stammered  and  hesitated  and  finally  made  it  known  that 
he  knew  just  one  conundrum. 

" '  Give  it  to  us,' "  said  Mr.  Depew  and  the  others  in  chorus. 

" '  "What  is  the  difference  between  a  turkey  and  me  ? ' "  solemnly 
asked  the  stranger. 

" '  Give  it  up,' "  said  Chairman  Depew. 


CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW.  291 

" '  The  difference  between  a  turkey  and  me,' "  mildly  said  the 
stranger,  " l  is  that  they  usually  stuff  the  bird  with  chestnuts  after 
death.  I  am  alive.' " 

Yanderbilt  smiled  audibly,  but  a  merry  ha !  ha ! !  echoed  from 
the  next  room. 

It  was  the  happy  laugh  of  Depew  himself,  and  it  grew  louder  till 
I  left  the  building.  When  I  meet  Mr.  Depew  now  I  give  him  the 
whole  sidewalk,  and  when  I  ride  on  his  railroad  I  walk. 


HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW'S  LECTURE. 

ENGLAND,  IRELAND  AND  SCOTLAND. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — We  started  in  the  morning  to  drive  to 
Blarney  Castle,  and  kiss  its  famous  stone.  The  road  runs  through  a 
country  which  gives  a  fair  idea  of  agricultural  Ireland.  We  passed  by 
the  splendid  farms  and  grand  houses  to  study  that  most  interesting  per- 
son in  Ireland,  the  Irish  peasant.  He  and  his  family  live  in  stone  cot- 
tages about  thirty  feet  long  and  one  story  high,  with  a  thatched  roof. 
The  floor  is  of  earth,  and  the  single  room  is  often  divided  so  that  the 
cow  and  pig  may  be  sheltered  in  the  other  half.  The  Irishman's  pig  is 
a  sacred  thing.  When  I  saw  the  proximity  of  the  pig  to-day,  I  said  to 
its  rosy-faced  owner: 

"  I  say,  Patrick,  don't  you  think  it  is  unhealthful  to  have  your  pig 
in  the  house  with  your  children?" 

"  An'  phy  shuld  oi  not,  sor?  'It's  unhealthy/  is  it,  ye  sez.  Be  away 
wid  yer  nonsense!  Sure  the  pig  has  never  been  sick  a  day  in  his  life." 
[Laughter.] 

Around  the  Irishman's  door  are  always  to  be  seen  crowds  of  children, 
looking  happy  and  light-hearted,  though  the  driver  said:  "  Maybe  they 
went  to  bed  without  supper  and  have  had  no  breakfast."  Children 
swarm  everywhere,  for  the  marriage  bond  in  Ireland  is  a  coupon  bond, 
and  they  cut  one  off  every  year. 

Blarney  Castle  is  situated  half  a  mile  from  the  public  road,  and  to 
get  to  it  we  walked  through  a  charming  garden.  The  castle  is  a 
solid  square  stone  tower  120  feet  high.  Round  the  top  runs  a  battle- 
ment resting  on  piers  projecting  from  the  face  of  the  tower.  Between 
this  battlement  or  coping  and  the  face  of  the  tower  is  a  space  of  about 
four  or  six  feet,  and  on  the  lower  side  of  the  coping  is  the  famous  Blar- 
ney stone,  held  in  its  place  by  iron  bands.  As  you  stand  on  the  top  of 
the  wall  of  the  castle  and  look  at  the  stone,  you  are  120  feet  from  the 
ground  on  the  outside,  and  100  on  the  inside,  where  the  different  floors 


292  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

have  fallen  through,  and  the  wall  on  which  you  are  is  about  three  feet 
wide.  If  you  attempt  to  reach  down  and  kiss  the  stone,  you  are  inevi- 
ably  pitched  to  the  ground  through  the  open  space  between  the  coping 
and  the  castle  proper.  If  your  friend  tries  to  hold  you,  when  he  pulls 
you  back,  both  of  you  fall  over  into  the  pit.  It  could  never  be  touched 
by  any  human  being  unless  he  had  a  derrick.  I  knew  its  virtues  both 
in  politics,  in  law,  and  in  love,  and  longed  to  glue  my  lips  to  its  surface. 
I  thought  over  Father  Front's  famous  lines: 

There  is  a  stone  there,  that  whoever  kisses 

Oh  !  he  never  misses  to  grow  eloquent ! 
'Tis  he  may  clamber  to  a  lady's  chamber, 

Or  become  a  member  of  Parliament. 
A  clever  spoutler  he'll  sure  turn  out,  or 

An  out  and  outer  to  be  let  alone; 
Don't  hope  to  hinder  him  or  to  bewilder  him, 

Sure  he's  a  pilgrim  to  the  Blarney  Stone. 

and  then  threw  it  a  despairing  kiss  and  climbed  down.  Sir  "Walter  Scott 
paid  the  spot  a  memorable  visit,  and  it  never  had  a  worthier  pilgrim  to 
its  shrine.  The  derricks  were  there  for  him,  and  hence  the  wonderful 
romance  and  weird  poetry  of  the  Wizard  of  the  North.  Father  Prout 
told  the  wondering  Scott  a  tale  about  the  Blarney  stone  surpassing  the 
Wizard's  wildest  creations. 

"  The  Blarney  stone,"  said  the  witty  Father  Prout,  "is  superior  to  the 
famed  stone  of  Memnon,  the  Luxor  obelisk,  the  Sphinx's  head,  the 
Delphic  oracle,  the  Elgin  marbles,  with  all  their  sculptures,  and  the 
Philosopher's  stone.  It  belonged  to  the  Irish  family  of  O'Neills,  who 
lived  in  Egypt  in  the  pre-historic  period,  and  from  the  river  Nile  it 
received  its  name,  and  the  twenty-first  year  after  the  sack  of  Troy  it  was 
brought  to  Ireland. 

Under  the  castle  are  the  dungeons  for  the  prisoners  of  war  or  chief- 
tain's vengeance.  In  these  cells  we  realize  the  cruelties  and  nameless 
horrors  which  were  inflicted  on  the  helpless  in  the  good  old  times.  I 
crept  on  hands  and  knees  through  a  low,  narrow,  winding  passage,  and 
finally  emerged  into  the  prisoner's  room.  No  ray  of  light  ever  penetrated 
it,  no  groans  or  cries  could  be  heard  through  the  thick  walls,  and  in  a 
space  not  high  enough  to  stand  upright,  in  dampness  and  utter  dark- 
ness, the  poor  wretches  died  in  nameless  agonies.  When  I  came  again 
into  the  light,  I  gave  my  guide  his  fee,  and,  as  I  bade  him  good-bye, 

he  cried: 

O  Blarney  Castle,  my  darling, 

You're  nothing  at  all  but  a  stone, 
And  a  small,  little  twist  of  ould  ivy; 

Och  wisha,  ullaloo,  ullagone.  [Laughter.] 


OHA  VNCET  M.  DEPEW.  29$ 

The  rich  Irish  brogue  and  blundering  bulls  of  the  Irishman  con- 
stantly amused  me.  Two  Irishmen  were  crossing  a  field  near  Blarney 
Castle,  and  saw,  for  the  first  time,  a  jackass,  which  was  making  "day- 
light hideous  "  with  his  unearthly  braying. 

Jemmy  stood  a  moment  in  astonishment,  then  turning  to  Pat,  who- 
was  also  enraptured  with  the  song,  he  remarked: 

"  It's  a  fine  ear  the  bird  has  got  for  music,  but  he's  got  a  wonderful 
cowld."  [Laughter.] 

Again,  two  Irishmen  were  working  in  a  quarry  around  the  Castle, 
when  one  of  them  fell  into  a  deep  quarry  hole.  The  other,  alarmed, 
came  to  the  margin  of  the  hole  and  called  out: 

"  Arrah,  Pat,  are  ye  killed  entirely?    If  ye're  dead,  spake." 

Pat  reassured  him  from  the  bottom  by  saying,  in  answer: 

"  No,  Tim,  I'm  not  dead,  but  I'm  spachless."     [Laughter.] 

But  the  Irish  brogue  is  no  funnier  than  the  English  brogue.  One- 
day  an  English  farmer  responded,  at  an  agricultural  fair,  to  the  toast  of 
"  The  Queen."  This  is  the  way  he  talked: 

"Noo,  gentlemen,  will  ye  a'  fill  your  glasses,  for  I'm  aboot  to  bring^ 
forward  'The  Queen/  [Applause.]  Oor  Queen,  gentlemen,  is  really  a 
wonderful  woman,  if  I  may  say  it;  she  is  ane  o'  the  guid  auld  sort,  nae 
whignaleeries  or  falderal  aboot  her,  but  a  douce  daecent  body.  She's 
respectable  beyond  a  doot.  She  has  brocht  up  a  grand  family  o*  weel- 
faur'd  lads  and  lasses — her  auldest  son  bein'  a  credit  to  ony  mither — and 
they're  weel  married.  Gentlemen,  ye'll  maybe  no  believe  it,  but  I  ance 
saw  the  queen.  [Sensation.  ]  I  did.  Somebody  pointed  her  oot  tae  me 
at  Perth  station,  and  there  she  was,  smart  and  tidy-like;  and  says  I  tae 
myself,  '  God  bless  that  queen,  my  queen ! '  Noo,  gentlemen,  the 
whuskey's  guid,  the  nicht  is  lang,  the  weather  is  wet,  and  the  roads  are 
saft,  and  will  harm  naebody  that  comes  to  grief.  So,  aff  wij  yer  drink 
tae  the  bottom!  ' The  queen! '"  [Loud  laughter.] 

A  rail  ride  of  half  a  day  from  Blarney  Castle  and  we  are  at  Killarney. 
Whatever  else  may  be  retarded  in  Ireland,  her  railways  are  admirably 
managed;  and  in  safety,  speed,  comfort,  and  high  fare,  compare  favora- 
bly with  any  in  Europe.  Whoever  expects  to  find  the  lakes  of  Killarney 
gems  unequalled  in  scenic  merit,  will  realize,  if  an  American,  that  cen- 
turies of  undisputed  praise,  the  adjectives  cumulating  as  each  cycle  rolls 
round,  like  the  storied  adulations  of  the  old  masters,  produce  a  picture 
in  the  imagination  never  realized  by  the  eye.  Lake  George,  in  our  own 
State  would  smile  with  serene  superiority  upon  any  sheet  of  water  ia 
Europe,  whose  beauties  have  been  celebrated  in  prose  and  poetry  by  the 
genius  of  every  age.  Nevertheless,  the  unquestioned  charms  of  Killar- 
ney, the  ruined  abbeys  and  castles  upon  its  shores,  the  wild  legends: 


294  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

which  are  connected  with  it,  make  it  one  of  the  most  impressive  places 
in  the  world.  I  never  shall  forget  the  jaunting-car  ride  with  the  wild 
horse  and  the  wilder  driver  around  to  the  upper  end  of  the  lake. 

"See  here,"  I  shouted,  as  we  dashed  at  full  speed  down  a  steep  hill, 
"what  will  become  of  us  if  that  horse  stumbles?"  "And  sure  yer 
honor,"  answered  the  driver,  "why  thin,  I  will  fall  out  first." 

At  Kate  Kearney's  cottage  the  traveler  takes  a  bit  of  goat's  milk  and 
potheen  in  memory  of  the  famous  beauty,  and  at  the  hands  of  her  alleged 
granddaughter,  and,  leaving  the  jaunting-car,  mounts  a  pony  for  a  ride 
through  the  Gap  of  Dunloe.  The  Gap  is  a  wild  gorge  in  the  mountain 
with  a  narrow  path  at  the  bottom,  and  barren  and  precipitous  rocks  at 
the  sides. 

Did  you  ever  see  those  beautiful  rosy  cheeked  Irish  girls?  About 
forty  of  them  joined  us  here,  and  followed  us  through  the  Gap,  and  a 
brighter,  merrier  party  never  was  met.  They  made  a  raid  upon  our 
pockets  which  cleaned  out  the  last  shilling,  but  it  was  fairly  won  and 
lost. 

"Sure,  sor,"  said  a  pretty  girl,  "an'  are  the  winters  very  cold  in 
Ameriky?" 

"  Yes,"  I  said. 

"Then,"  said  this  bright-eyed  siren,  "  I  have  been  expecting  you  sor, 
and  have  knitted  these  woolen  stockings  to  make  you  comfortable  at 
home,  and  keep  your  heart  warm  to  ould  Ireland." 

"  And  is  there  nothing  you  will  buy?"  said  another. 

"Nothing,"  said  I. 

"Well,  then,"  she  cried,  "  will  yer  honor  give  me  a  shilling  for  a  six- 
pence?" 

"lam  going  to  be  married,  sor,"  lisped  a  mountain  beauty,  "and 
me  marriage  portion  is  pretty  near  made  up!  and  Pat's  getting  very 
weary  waiting  so  long." 

"  My  money  is  all  gone,"  said  I,  when  quick  as  a  flash  I  heard  a  friend 
say  to  her: 

"  Mary,  thry  him  on  getting  to  Ameriky."     [Laughter.] 

Desolate  as  this  spot  is,  it  furnishes  an  opportunity  for  that  species  of 
landlordism  which  is  Ireland's  curse,  and  adds  needless  irritation  to 
oppression.  The  man  who  wakes  the  echoes  with  a  blast  from  the  bugle 
must  pay  $25  a  year  for  the  privilege,  the  artillery-man  who  stirs  them 
up  with  a  cannon  is  taxed  by  the  land-owner  $50. 

Oh,  the  poverty  of  Ireland! 

As  we  emerged  from  the  Gap  and  looked  into  the  Black  Valley,  so 
called,  because  between  the  steep  hills  the  sun  only  penetrates  at 


CHA  UNCE7  M.  DEPEW.  295 

mid-day,  I  noticed  that  it  was  cut  up  into  small  farms  of  about  five  acres 
each.  Around  the  little  stone  cabins  were  the  chickens,  the  goat,  the 
pigs  and  the  donkey.  I  said  to  one  of  their  tenants: 

"  How  much  rent  do  you  pay  for  this  land?  " 

"  For  the  cottage  and  five  acres,  with  the  privilege  of  pasturing  sheep 
on  the  side  of  the  mountain,  we  each  pay  $250  a  year." 

"  In  heaven's  name/'  I  said,  "  how  can  you  raise  enough  to  do  that 
and  keep  body  and  soul  together?  " 

"And  that's  all  we  do,  sir,"  he  answered,  "and  we  couldn't  do  that 
except  for  the  corn  meal  which  comes  to  us  from  your  country." 

At  the  foot  of  the  Black  Valley  we  took  a  six-oared  boat  for  a  trip 
through  the  lakes.  They  are  three  in  number — the  first  being  eight 
miles  wide  by  two  in  length,  then  a  river  for  two  miles  to  the  middle 
lake,  and  then  you  shoot  the  rapids  to  the  lower  lake  which  is  five  miles 
wide  by  three  long.  The  mountains  rise  from  the  water  to  the  height 
of  1,700  feet,  and  numberless  islands  everywhere  dot  the  surface.  Every 
islet,  rock  and  cove  has  its  story  of  earjy  and  bloody  strife,  of  love  and 
murder,  of  fairy  or  ghostly  visitant;  and  the  boatmen  religiously  believe 
that  once  a  year  the  O'Donoghue,  on  his  snow-white  horse,  rises  from 
the  lake  and  rides  to  his  ancient  castle.  All  the  sights  to  be  seen  are 
upon  the  land  owned  by  Mr.  Herbert,  of  Muckross,  and  the  Earl  of  Ken- 
mare.  Every  few  miles  you  pass  through  a  gate  and  pay  a  shilling. 

"Why,"  I  asked  the  driver,  "is  this  charge  made  so  often  to  ride 
over  these  roads?" 

"  Shame  on  the  landlord,"  he  said,  bitterly,  "  with  his  thousands  of 
pounds,  who  taxes  the  tourist  to  keep  up  his  grounds." 

Muckross  Abbey  is  a  fine  old  ruin,  and  worth  the  fee  to  visit,  but 
when,  after  buying  a  ticket,  you  are  mysteriously  directed  through  a 
wicket  gate,  and  climbing  a  steep  hill  are  ushered  into  the  presence  of 
the  far-famed  Tore  Water  Fall,  you  involuntarily  cry: 

"  Oh,  Shade  of  Barnum,  the  Great;  humbug  is  not  a  protected 
American  product,  for  the  wonderful  Tore  is  surpassed  in  both  grandeur 
and  beauty  by  Buttermilk  Falls,  near  West  Point." 

No  greater  contrast  ever  existed  in  the  same  country  than  between 
the  cities  of  Belfast  and  Cork.  While  the  latter  is  retrograding,  the  for- 
mer has  increased  its  population  six-fold  in  fifty  years.  It  is  full  of  life 
and  activity,  and  resembles  an  American  town.  Every  body  has  some- 
thing to  do,  and  there  is  enough  to  do  for  all,  and  poverty  and  distress 
seem  to  be  unknown.  It  supports  four  colleges  and  over  one  hundred 
churches.  There  is  nothing  for  the  sightseer  in  this  busy  hive,  and  so 
he  starts  for  the  Giant's  Causeway.  As  you  near  the  causeway  there 
20 


296  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

stands  out  in  the  ocean  one  of  the  most  romantic  ruins  in  the  world. 
The  sea  has  cut  off  a  projecting  promontory  from  the  land,  and  upon 
this  the  mediaeval  baron  built  his  castle  of  Duuluce.  The  precipitous 
sides  run  down  100  feet  to  the  water,  and  it  is  joined  to  the  land  by  a 
causeway  only  eighteen  inches  wide.  As  you  look  at  the  grand  old  ruin 
and  this  threadlike  bridge,  the  story  of  the  bloody  and  cruel  past  is  bet- 
ter told  than  in  a  thousand  volumes.  From  its  gates  came  the  chief 
and  his  armed  retainers  to  plunder  and  ravage  the  surrounding  country, 
and  in  their  train,  on  their  return,  was  the  father,  to  be  tortured  for 
his  hidden  treasures,  then  flung  over  the  battlements,  and  the  daughter 
to  become  the  sport  of  the  soldiers.  The  Bridge  of  Sighs  never  heard  so 
many  cries  of  suffering  and  despair  as  were  borne  from  this  lonely  rock 
across  the  lonely  waters.  The  Giant's  Causeway  is  one  of  the  few  mar- 
velous freaks  of  nature  sufficiently  wonderful  to  distinguish  any  country. 
It  is  only  by  a  visit,  and  not  by  a  description,  that  this  phenomenal 
formation  can  be  understood.  But  here,  on  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic, 
are  hundreds  of  acres  covered  with  stone  columns  more  perfect  than  the 
artisan  ever  worked.  There  are  millions  of  them.  Each  is  about  two 
feet  in  diameter.  They  are  formed  of  separate  blocks  about  a  foot  thick, 
and  yet  so  perfectly  joined  that  it  is  difficult  to  see  where  they  touch, 
except  you  lift  one  off.  The  columns  are  from  four  to  100  feet  in  height. 
Some  are  three-sided,  and  from  that  to  eight  sides,  but  no  matter  how 
many,  each  side  is  exactly  of  the  same  dimensions  as  the  other,  and  the 
surfaces  are  as  smooth  as  if  polished  by  machinery.  In  the  rear  they 
form  the  front  of  a  lofty  cliff,  and,  looking  like  its  pipes,  are  called  the 
Giant's  Organ,  whose  music  is  the  reverberation  of  the  dashing  waves  of 
the  ocean. 

Naturalists  and  scientists  have  done  their  best  to  solve  the  problem, 
of  the  structure  of  this  grand  temple,  but  after  all  the  Irish  explanation 
is  the  best.  In  the  olden  time  the  famous  Irish  giant,  Fin  McCoul,  had 
a  quarrel  with  a  Scotch  giant  across  the  water.  The  Scotchman  said  he 
would  come  over  and  mop  up  the  floor  with  Fin  if  it  was  not  for  getting 
his  feet  wet.  Whereupon  Mr.  McCoul,  like  the  fine  ould  Irish  gentle- 
man that  he  was,  built  this  causeway  for  his  Caledonian  rival,  and  greeted 
him  with  the  most  tremendous  thrashing  ever  given  to  man.  What  was 
left  of  the  Scot,  Mr.  McCoul  generously  set  up  in  business  in  a  grocery, 
and  the  sea  in  time  washed  away  Fin's  bridge  to  Scotland. 

Why  is  the  Irishman  poor,  and  why  do  the  troubles  of  this  people 
vex  all  the  world?  If  you  ask  an  Englishman  the  remedy,  he  answers, 
"Leave  the  island  twenty-four  hours  under  water."  The  main  difficulty 
is  that  William  III.,  at  the  petition  of  the  British  manufacturers,  abol- 
ished all  the  factories  in  Ireland  but  the  linen  ones.  In  the  north  of 


CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW.  297 

Ireland,  where  these  still  flourish,  there  are  thrift  and  content.  The  rest 
of  the  country  is  necessarily  purely  agricultural.  There  are  no  diver- 
sified industries  for  the  young  men  and  women.  Families  are  large,  and 
the  tenant  farmer  divides  his  holding  among  his  children.  If  he  has  ten 
and  a  hundred  acre  farm  he  leaves  them  ten  acres  apiece.  If  they  each 
in  turn  have  ten,  they  can  give  their  children  but  one  acre  each,  and 
then  it  being  impossible  to  either  get  a  living  off  the  land  or  pay  a  cent 
of  rent,  there  is  nothing  left  but  to  shoot  the  landlord.  I  said  to  a  large 
English  manufacturer: 

"  Why  don't  you  solve  the  Irish  question  by  establishing  here  new 
Sheffields  and  Birminghams,  and  then  this  island  could  support  10,000,- 
000  in  comfort  where  4,000,000  can  not  live." 

"  The  beggars/'  said  he,  "won't  work." 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  In  America  they  reclaim  New  England  farms  which 
the  Yankees  have  abandoned,  and  are  usefully  industrious  in  every  public 
and  private  work." 

I  repeated*  the  rejnark  of  the  English  manufacturer  to  an  Irish 
member  of  parliament,  and  asked  his  answer.  "  Well,"  he  said,  "  they 
will  not  work  for  an  Englishman." 

As  the  Irish  have  no  capital  to  start  manufactories,  this  reply  added 
greatly  to  the  difficulties  of  the  question.  In  her  natural  relations  to 
other  nations,  and  her  own  proper  development,  the  successful  and 
wealthy  men  in  Ireland  would  be  her  workers  in  iron  and  steel,  in  cotton 
and  wool.  But  alas,  there  are  none,  and  so  a  brewer  restores  St.  Patrick's 
cathedral  at  a  cost  of  a  million,  and  a  distiller,  Christ  Church  catnedral, 
at  a  cost  of  another  million,  and  both  are  knighted  here — perhaps  here- 
after. 

A  boatman  on  Killarney  told  me  he  supported  a  family  of  eight 
children  on  $75  a  year.  A  bright,  intelligent  man,  who  did  some  work 
for  me,  said  he  could  earn  only  twenty-five  cents  a  day,  and  that,  in  the 
same  cabin  with  his  domestic  animals,  himself  and  ten  children  lived 
upon  the  food  which  fattened  the  chickens  and  the  pigs. 

An  Irishman  in  the  employ  of  the  Central  Railroad  got  to  the  bottom 
of  the  Irish  question.  He  stepped  into  a  meat  market  and  asked  an  old 
lady  the  price  of  fowls. 

"A  dollar  apiece,"  was  the  reply. 

"  And  a  dollar  is  it,  my  darlint?  Why,  in  Ireland  you  might  buy 
them  for  a  sixpence  apiece." 

"Then  why  didn't  you  stay  in  that  blessed  cheap  country?" 

"Och,   faith  and  there  were  no  sixpences    there,   to  be  sure." 
[Laughter.  ] 


298  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  all  these  hard  conditions,  the  Irish  are 
the  quickest  and  most  cheerful  of  all  the  peasantry  of  Europe.  While 
the  English  and  continental  people  who  are  in  like  condition  are  little 
above  the  brutes,  the  Irish  are  as  full  of  life,  fire  and  humor  as  if  their 
state  was  one  of  frolic  and  ease.  Touch  one  of  them  anywhere  and  at 
any  time,  and  he  bubbles  with  fun  and  smart  repartee.  "When  I  was  in 
Dublin,  a  political  orator  was  describing  his  opponent  as  an  extinct  vol- 
cano, when  a  voice  in  the  audience  cried: 

"Oh,  the  poor  crater." 

I  said  to  a  jaunting-car  driver  at  Queenstown,  to  whom  I  owed  a 
shilling: 

"  Can  you  change  a  half-crown  (two  and  sixpence)  "? 

"  Change  a  half-crown,  is  it?  "he  cried,  in  mock  amazement,  "do 
you  think  I  have  robbed  a  bank?" 

At  Killarney  I  met  a  delicious  bit  of  wit  and  blunder.  I  asked  the 
hotel  clerk  to  stamp  a  letter  for  me.  He  put  on  the  postage  stamp 
which  bears  Victoria's  image,  and  then  starting  back  as  if  horrified, 
said: 

"  Bedad,  but  I  have  stood  her  majesty  on  her  head." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "that  is  not  astonishing  for  an  Irishman,  but  that  is 
a  double  letter,  and  won't  go  without  another  stamp." 

"Another  stamp,  is  it?"  and  slapping  the  second  directly  over  the 
first,  "  Begorra,"  said  he,  "it  will  go  now."  [Laughter.] 

I  love  the  witty  Irish  so  well,  you  must  let  me  illustrate  some  of 
their  characteristics.  Some  friends  of  mine,  and  among  them  a  disciple 
of  Bergh,  were  walking  through  Cork,  and  saw  a  boy  of  sixteen  beating 
a  donkey.  Said  the  member  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cru- 
elty to  Animals : 

"Boy,  stop  beating  your  brother!  "  and  as  quick  as  a  flash  the  boy 
answered: 

"  I  won't,  father! " 

I  said  to  an  Irish  liveryman:  "  Give  me  a  good  horse  for  a  long  ride." 

"All  right,  your  honor.     The  best  in  the  world." 

The  horse  broke  down  in  half  an  hour,  and  I  said:  "  You  rascal, 
why  did  you  cheat  me  in  this  way?" 

"  Sure,  your  honor,  that  horse  is  all  right,  but  he  is  a  very  intelli- 
gent baste,  and  knowing  you  are  a  stranger,  he  wants  you  to  have  time 
to  see  the  scenery." 

As  I  was  bidding  farewell  to  Ireland,  I  said  to  my  faithful  attendant: 
"Good-bye,  Pat." 

"  Good-bye,  yer  honor,"  he  said,  pathetically.  "  May  God  bless  you 
and  may  every  hair  in  your  head  be  a  candle  to  light  your  soul  to  glory." 


CHAVNCT  M.  DEPEW.  299 

"Well,  Pat,"  I  said,  showing  him  my  bald  pate,  "  when  that  time 
comes  there  won't  be  much  of  a  torchlight  procession."  [Laughter.] 

The  Irish  all  love  whisky.  To  be  sure,  there  are  temperance  men, 
but  even  they,  when  the  bottle  comes,  invariably  break  their  best  reso- 
lutions. 

"  Biddy,"  said  Mulligan  to  his  wife,  who  was  a  member  of  the  tem- 
perance society:  "  I  know  yez  are  a  temperance  woman,  but  it  is  a  bad 
cowld  yez  has,  and  a  drop  of  the  craythur  would  do  yez  no  harrum." 

"Oh,  honey,"  replied  Biddy,  "Fve  taken  the  pledge;  but  yez  can 
mix  me  a  drink  and  force  me  to  swally  it! "  [Laughter.] 

A  rough  sail  across  the  Irish  Channel  and  a  long  ride  by  rail  found 
us  at  midnight  at  Glasgow,  one  of  the  busiest  workshops  in  the  world. 
But  we  care  not  for  the  industrial  and  commercial  activities  of  Scotland: 
the  magic  spell  of  her  mountains,  her  lakes  and  wild  history  is  upon 
us.  In  the  early  morning  we  leave  behind  the  great  town,  and  in  a  few 
hours  are  sailing  over  Loch  Lomond,  the  queen  of  the  Scottish  lakes. 
The  vast  expanse  of  water,  the  beautiful  islands,  the  mountains  rising 
peak  on  peak  till  lost  in  the  clouds,  the  beetling  crags  which  meet  the 
waves,  make  this  one  of  the  few  sights  which  fulfil  expectations. 
Through  the  passes  surrounding  this  lake,  the  Highland  chieftains  and 
their  clans  raided  the  Lowland  farms.  The  Celtic  warriors  of  the  olden 
time  followed  the  golden  rule  of  the  day: 

The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan, 
That  they  do  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  do  keep  who  can. 

The  McGregors,  the  McFarlanes,  the  Colquhans,  here  had  their  lairs 
and  fought  those  bloody  battles  which  have  given  to  literature  some  of 
ts  best  poetry  and  romance.  It  was  over  these  mountains  that  the 
fire  signals  flashed  from  peak  to  peak,  calling  the  clansmen  to  resist  the 
invader,  and  it  was  through  these  glens  that  Ehoderick  Dhu  sent  his 
fiery  cross.  While  bold  Bob  Koy  McGregor  defied  here  his  enemies,  and 
far  up  above  the  beach  you  see  the  cave  which  was  his  shelter  and  retreat. 
But  with  all  that  nature  has  done  for  Scotland,  and  she  has  been  very 
lavish,  the  country  owes  the  magic  charm  with  which  her  hills  and  vales  are 
invested  for  all  the  world  to  the  genius  of  three  men — Sir  Walter  Scott, 
Eobert  Burns  and  John  Knox.  At  every  step  the  stranger  comes  upon 
a  scene  familiar  to  him  from  childhood,  through  those  grand  stories  and 
marvelous  verses  of  Scott  and  Burns.  You  have  all  read  the  "  Lady  of 
the  Lake,"  but  it  takes  a  trip  through  the  Highlands  to  appreciate  its 
realistic  beauty.  I  stood  by  the  brawling  waters  of  Coilantogle  Ford, 
where  Ehoderick  Dhu  challenged  Fitz  James  to  mortal  combat,  by  the 


300  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Laurie  Mead,  Clan  Alpine's  gathering  ground,  crossed  the  Bridge  of 
Turk  and  murmured, 

And  when  the  brig  of  Turk  was  won, 
The  headmost  horseman  rode  alone, 

rode  through  the  Trossachs,  the  wild  mountain  gorge,  at  whose  entrance 
Fitz  James  lost  his  gallant  grey,  and  stopped  at  Ellen's  Isle,  at  Loch 
Katrine, 

Where  for  retreat  in  dangerous  hour 

Some  chief  had  framed  a  rustic  bower, 

long  enough  to  appreciate  Scott's  description: 

With  promontory,  creek  and  bay, 
And  mountains  that  like  giants  stand, 
To  sentinel  enchanted  land. 

Then  before  me  seemed  to  rise  the  kingly  warrior,  Fitz  James,  stand- 
ing on  the  "silver  strand,"  while  from  her  isle  came  in  her  boat  the  fair 

Ellen. 

A  chieftain's  daughter  seemed  the  maid, 
Her  satin  snood,  her  silken  braid, 
Her  golden  brooch  such  birth  betrayed. 
And  seldom  on  a  breast  so  fair 
Mantled  a  plaid  with  modest  care. 
And  never  brooch  the  folds  combined 
Above  a  heart  more  good  and  kind. 

The  next  morning  I  stood  upon  the  battlements  of  Stirling  Castle,  this 
famous  fortress  of  the  Scottish  kings  upon  a  rocky  eminence,  which 
overlooks  a  vast  stretch  of  country.  From  its  walls  are  seen  the  hills 
where  Wallace  bled,  and  the  field  of  Bannockburn,  where  Bruce  saved 
his  country. 

Legend  and  story  are  about  every  stone  and  stream.  You  stand  in 
the  room  where  King  James  stabbed  the  Douglass  and  threw  his  body  out 
of  the  window.  You  sit  in  the  chair  which  Queen  Mary  and  her  son 
each  occupied  when  crowned.  You  look  at  the  pulpit  from  which  Knox 
thundered  his  coronation  sermon  to  the  little  six-year-old  king,  whom  he 
had  taken  from  his  papist  mother  at  the  cost  of  her  imprisonment  and 
exile,  and  then  you  begin  to  understand  the  wild  tragedies  of  those  troub- 
lous times.  But  the  center  of  Scotland's  strange  and  romantic  history 
for  a  thousand  years  is  Edinburgh,  the  most  interesting  city  of  Europe. 
On  one  side  of  the  steep  gorge,  upon  the  slopes  of  which  it  is  built, 
rises  the  old  town  with  the  houses,  the  narrow  streets,  the  fortifications 
of  centuries  gone  by,  while  on  the  other  side  is  built  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  modern  cities,  and  thus  the  past  and  the  present  stand  sen- 
tinels over  each  other.  Through  the  old  town  the  castle  is  reached. 


CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW.  301 

This  palace  and  fort  is  built  upon  a  rock,  whose  precipitous  sides  stand 
perpendicularly  nearly  400  feet  from  the  plain  below.  Within  its  walls 
the  noblest  and  best  of  Scotland's  sons  have  been  imprisoned,  executed 
or  murdered.  In  a  plain  room,  not  larger  than  an  ordinary  closet,  Queen 
Mary  gave  birth  to  James,  the  future  king  of  England,  and  he  was  soon 
after  lowered  down  in  a  basket  and  hurried  to  Stirling  Castle  that  he 
might  be  baptized  in  his  mother's  faith,  the  Roman  Catholic,  an  act 
which  caused  his  mother  to  lose  her  crown  at  the  hand  of  Knox,  and 
ultimately  her  life  at  the  hand  of  Elizabeth.  My  canny  and  frugal 
guide  said  to  me:  "Sir,  the  tower  is  closed  which  contains  the  crown 
jewels,  and  you  can't  get  in." 

"The  doors  are  locked,  you  say?" 

"Locked  as  tight  as  the  Bank  of  England." 

"Will  a  sovereign  open  them?" 

"The  half  of  it  will,  sir!"  he  fairly  yelled  in  astonishment  at  the 
reckless  prodigality  of  the  offer.  [Laughter.] 

The  ride  of  ten  miles  from  Edinburgh  to  Rosslyn  gave  me  an  unusual 
opportunity  to  mark  the  difference  in  intelligence  between  the  national- 
ities of  the  coachman  class.  The  Irish  driver  is  full  of  wit,  humor  and 
fun,  but  his  information  is  limited,  and  he  is  a  poor  guide.  The  Eng- 
lish driver  is  the  stupidest  of  all  mortals.  He  has  neither  imagination 
nor  knowledge.  I  said  to  one  as  we  drove  through  the  ancient  gates  of 
an  old  walled  town: 

"What  were  those  arches  built  for?" 

"  I  don't  know,  sir." 

"How  long  have  you  lived  here?" 

"All  my  life,  sir." 

In  the  square  at  Salisbury,  stood  a  statue  of  Sidney  Herbert,  for  many 
years  a  distinguished  member  of  parliament.  I  asked  the  coachman: 
"Whose  statue  is  that?" 

"Mr.  Herbert's,  sir." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "What  did  he  do  to  deserve  a  statue?" 

"I  don't  know,  sir,  but  I  think  he  fit  somewhere."     [Laughter.] 

"  Well,  is  that  the  reason  he  is  dressed  in  a  frock  coat,  and  carries  an 
umbrella  instead  of  a  sword?" 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  think  so." 

I  said  to  my  driver  at  Torquay: 

"  Do  many  Americans  come  here?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  sir.  H' Americans  are  very  fond  of  Torquay.  Only  yester- 
day morning,  sir,  two  h'Americans,  young  ladies,  'ad  me  out  before  break- 
fast, and  they  made  me  drive  them  to  an  h' American  dentist  to  have  a 
tooth  plugged,  and  the  next  day  I  had  to  go  there  very  early  again,  because 


302  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

there  was  some  trouble  with  that  plug.  Oh,  the  h*  Americans  are  very 
fond  of  Torquay,  sir. " 

But  the  Scotch  driver  knows  as  much  as  a  college  professor.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  real  or  legendary  history  of  every  spot  we  pass  that  he 
will  not  give  you  with  surpassing  clearness  and  accuracy. 

I  saw  a  dozen  of  the  thirty-five  cathedrals  of  England.  They  aver- 
age eight  hundred  years  of  age.  Each  has  its  own  distinctive  style  of 
architecture,  and  they  combine  all  we  know  of  that  grand  art.  Their 
builders  and  designers  are  gone,  forgotten  and  unknown,  but  they  mark 
that  era  in  the  history  of  the  race  when  the  church  of  Christ  saved 
humanity  from  slavery  and  bestiality  *under  the  heel  of  tyrant  kings  and 
robber  nobles.  Gratitude,  piety,  reverence  and  worship,  having  no 
other  way  of  expressing  devotion  to  the  one  power  which,  in  an  age  when 
might  made  right,  humbled  the  lofty  and  raised  the  lowly,  could  bring 
royalty  in  penance  to  the  shrine,  and  save  the  liberty  and  virtue  of  the 
peasant  from  the  feudal  lord,  built  these  vast,  splendid  and  enduring 
monuments  to  the  ever-living  God.  I  remember,  as  I  sat  during  service 
one  Sunday  in  Eosslyn  chapel,  near  Edinburgh,  wondering  at  the  skill 
which  amidst  the  rude  and  almost  savage  barbarism  of  the  twelfth 
century  could  have  fashioned  the  graceful  arches,  the  superb  and  lavish 
carving,  the  delicate  handiwork  everywhere  visible  in  this  most  exquisite 
poem  in  stone  of  the  middle  ages.  As  the  rector  was  preaching  the 
thinnest  and  leanest  sermon  I  ever  heard,  I  became  rapt  in  contempla- 
tion of  that  wondrous  pillar,  known  as  the  Apprentice's  Pillar,  which  in 
a  forest  of  pillars  stands  alone  in  the  curves,  the  spiral  and  serpentlike 
coils,  which  give  it  such  remarkable  beauty;  and  thought  of  the  poor 
apprentice  genius  who  fashioned  it  while  his  master  was  at  Rome,  study- 
ing a  model,  and  when  the  master  returned  and  saw  this  creation,  so 
much  finer  than  any  he  had  found  abroad,  in  a  fit  of  jealous  rage  he 
crushed  the  apprentice's  skull  with  his  hammer. 

After  leaving  Old  Sarum,  a  drive  of  ten  miles  over  unfenced  plains 
upon  which  the  sheep  grazed  in  countless  herds,  attended  as  in  primitive 
days,  by  the  shepherd  and  his  dog,  brought  me  to  Stonehenge.  This 
temple  was  built  before  recorded  time,  and  its  origin  is  one  of  the 
mvsteries  of  the  pre-historic  past. 

That  there  were  giants  in  the  olden  time, 
These  stones  cry  out,  whether  before  the  flood, 
{As  some  have  dreamt)  in  earth's  majestic  prime, 
The  sons  of  Tubal  piled  up  here  sublime 
Whatever  since  in  mystery  hath  stood 
A  miracle;  or  whether  Merlin's  rhyme 
Or  patriarchal  Druids  with  their  brood 
Of  swarming  Celts  upheaved  them,  here  they  stand 
In  Titan  strength,  enormous,  wonderful. 


CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW.  303 

There  are  four  rows  in  circles,  of  rough,  uncut  stone  columns,  each 
circle  within  the  other.  Two  uprights  standing  about  twenty-five  feet 
high,  are  bound  by  a  third,  resting  across  them  on  the  top,  and  so  on  all 
the  way  round.  This  structure  is  in  the  midst  of  a  chalk  plain,  and 
there  are  no  stones  like  it  nearer  than  Ireland.  The  stones  weigh  about 
eleven  tons  each.  Where  did  they  come  from?  How  did  a  primitive 
people  get  them  there?  How  did  they  raise  these  vast  blocks  and  place 
them  upon  the  top  of  the  upright  supports?  Have  other  races  lived, 
flourished  and  perished  with  high  civilization  before  our  own?  I  made 
all  these  inquiries  and  many  more  of  the  old  guide  at  the  temple,  and 
finally  he  said: 

"H'l  can  h'always  tell  h' Americans  by  the  h'odd  questions  they  ask. 
Now  that  big  stone  yonder  fell  h'over  and  broke  in  the  year  1797,  and 
when  I  told  this  to  one  of  your  countrymen  he  said : 

"  '  Well,  did  you  see  it  fall?' 

"'Good  heavens/  said  I,  'that  was  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago.' 

"Then  I  was  only  last  week  pointing  out  to  a  pretty  young  h'Amer- 
ican  lady,  how  only  one  day  in  the  year,  and  that  the  longest  day,  the 
first  rays  of  the  rising  sun  come  directly  over  that  tallest  stone,  and  strike 
on  that  stone  lying  down  over  there  with  the  letter  'h'A*  on  it,  which 
means  the  altar. 

"  '  Oh/  she  said,  '  I  suppose  you  have  seen  it  more  than  a  thousand 
times/ 

"  '  Lord  bless  you,  miss/  said  I,  '  it  only  happens  once  a  year.'" 
[Laughter.] 

Henry  Irving,  the  actor,  told  me  that  Toole,  the  comedian,  said  to 
him  one  day:  "And  so  you  have  done  more  in  twenty  years  to  revive 
and  properly  present  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  than  any  man  living,  and 
were  never  at  Stratford?  Let's  go  at  once."  A  few  hours  found  them 
roaming  over  all  the  sacred  and  classic  scenes  by  the  Avon.  As  they 
were  returning  to  the  hotel  in  the  early  evening,  they  met  an  agricultural 
laborer  coming  home  with  his  shirt  outside  his  pantaloons,  with  his  pipe 
in  his  mouth,  stolid  and  content.  Toole  asked  him  : 

"Does  Mr.  Shakespeare  live  here  ?  " 

"No,  sor.     I  think  he  be  dead." 

"Well,  do  many  people  come  to  see  his  grave  ?" 

"Oh,  yes,  sor." 

"  What  did  he  do  to  make  these  great  crowds  visit  his  house  and  the 
church  where  he  is  buried?" 

"I've  lived  here  all  my  life,"  said  Hodge,  scratching  his  head  in 
great  perplexity,  "  but  I  don't  know  exactly,  but  I  think  he  writ  some- 
thin'." 


304  EINQ8  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Well,  what  did  he  write?  " 

"I  think/'  said  Hodge,  solemnly,  "it  was  the  Bible/'  [Laughter.] 
After  seeing  the  great  Gladstone  and  the  House  of  Commons  I  went 
to  Windsor  Castle,  the  home  of  the  good  Queen.  After  viewing  that 
superbest  of  chapels,  with  its  panels  of  rarest  stones,  each  bearing  an 
appropriate  text,  and  in  the  center  the  recumbent  statue  of  that  devotedly 
loved  husband,  to  whom  she  erected  this  church  as  a  memorial ;  after 
wandering — I  had  almost  said  for  miles — through  drawing  rooms,  re- 
ception-rooms, throne-rooms,  audience  chambers  and  banqueting  halls, 
«ach  wonderful  in  its  carvings,  appointments,  pictures,  tapestries  and 
statuaries,  we  came  to  an  apartment  set  apart  for  the  trophies  of  Eng- 
land's great  warriors.  There  are  the  busts  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough, 
with  mementoes  of  Blenheim-  and  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  surrounded 
by  relics  from  Waterloo,  ana  the  foremast  of  the  flagship  Victory  pierced 
by  a  cannon  ball,  and  upon  the  top  of  this  most  appropriate  standard, 
the  colossal  statue  of  the  famous  admiral  of  the  Victory,  Lord  Nelson. 
On  either  side  hang  the  two  flags  which  the  Dukes  of  Marlborough  and 
Wellington  must  replace  before  12  o'clock  on  the  anniversaries  of 
the  battles  of  Blenheim  and  Waterloo,  or  lose  the  vast  estates  voted  by 
the  nation  to  their  ancestors  for  those  victories.  On  the  floor,  midway 
between  these  flags  and  surrounded  by  memorials  of  generals,  princes 
and  kings,  who  have  filled  the  world  with  their  renown,  is  a  plain  chair 
made  from  an  old  oaken  beam  taken  from  the  little,  obscure,  roofless  ruin 
in  Scotland,  the ' ' Auld  Alloway's  haunted  kirk"  of  Eobert  Burns.  Thus, 
in  the  proudest  room,  in  the  most  magnificent  of  royal  palaces,  the  queen 
of  that  nation  upon  whose  dominions  the  sun  never  sets,  places,  amidst 
the  most  precious  memorials  of  the  glory  of  her  empire,  pays  this  simple 
and  effecting  tribute  to  the  genius  of  the  humble  Ayrshire  plough-boy. 
The  American,  standing  there  in  the  very  shadow  of  the  throne,  but- 
tressed as  it  is  by  an  hereditary  legislature  and  proud  nobility,  glories  in 
a  citizenship  which  confers  sovereignty,  and  with  bared  head  repeats  the 
lines  of  Burns : 

A  prince  can  make  a  belted  knight, 

A  marquis,  duke,  and  a'  that, 

But  an  honest  man's  aboon  his  might, 

The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp. 

The  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that. 

The  honest  man  though  e'er  sae  poor, 

Is  king  o'men  for  a'  that, 

Then  let  us  pray  that  come  it  may, 

As  come  it  will  for  a'  that, 

That  man  to  man  the  world  o'er, 

Shall  brithers  be  for  a'  that.      [Loud  applause.] 


"BILL  NYE.' 


BIOGRAPHY   AND  REMINISCENCES. 

Edgar  W.  Nye,  whose  humor  reaches  as  far  as  the  English  language,  took  his 
pseudonym  from  the  Bill  Nye  in  Bret  Harte's  poem,  "Plain  Language  from  Truth- 
ful James."  The  poem  was  written  years  before  "Bill  Nye  "became  famous,  and 
reads: 

"  Ah  Sin  was  his  name; 
And  I  shall  not  deny 
In  regard  to  the  same 

What  that  name  might  imply, 
But  his  smile  it  was  pensive  and  childlike, 
As  I  frequent  remarked  to  Bill  Nye," 

Mr.  Nye,  like  Artemus  Ward,  was  born  in  Maine.  He  first  saw  the  light  near 
the  woods  of  Moosehead  Lake.  When  I  asked  him  about  his  life,  he  said: 

"We  moved  from  Moosehead  Lake  when  I  was  very  young,  and  I  lived  in  the 
West  among  the  rattlesnakes  and  the  Indians  until  I  grew  up.  I  practiced  law 
for  about  a  year,  but,"  he  added,  without  changing  a  muscle,  "  nobody  knew  much 
about  it ;  I  kept  it  very  quiet.  I  was  a  Justice  of  the  Peace,  in  Laramie,  for  six 
years." 

"  Did  you  ever  marry  any  one?  " 

"  O,  yes,  I  married  my  wife,  and  after  that  I  used  to  marry  others,  and  then  try 
them  for  other  offenses." 

Mr.  Nye  is  the  author  of  several  books,  among  which  are  "Baled  Hay"  and 
"Bill  Nye's  Chestnuts,"  by  Belford- Clarke  Co.  He  lias  also  contributed  to  the 
Century  Magazine.  Every  newspaper  in  the  English  language  is  now  filled  with 
his  writings. 

The  attention  of  the  public  was  first  called  to  the  humorist's 
writings,  on  account  of  his  vigorous  English.  His  language  was  of 
the  wild  West  order.  For  example :  Some  one  asked  the  editor  of 
The  Boomerang  the  question,  ""What  is  literature?" 

"  "What  is  literature  ? "  exclaimed  Bill,  half  contemptuously, 
pointing  to  the  columns  of  The  Boomerang,  "What  is  literature? 


BILL  NTE.  307 

Cast  your  eye  over  these  logic-imbued  columns,  you  sun-dried  savant 
from  the  remote  precincts.  Drink  at  the  never-failing  Boomerang 
springs  of  forgotten  lore,  you  dropsical  wart  of  a  false  and  erro- 
neous civilization.  Read  our  *  Address  to  Sitting  Bull,'  or  our 
4  Ode  to  the  Busted  Snoot  of  a  Shattered  Venus  De  Milo,'  if  you 
want  to  fill  up  your  thirsty  soul  with  high-priced  literature.  Don't 
go  around  hungering  for  literary  pie  while  your  eyes  are  closed  and 
your  capacious  ears  are  filled  with  bales  of  hay." 

Years  after  Bret  Harte's  poem  was  written,  Edgar  W.  Nye  com- 
menced signing  his  articles  "  Bill  Nye."  Mr.  Nye  always  considered 
the  best  joke  ever  perpetrated  by  an  English  newspaper  was  when 
The  London  JVews  came  out  with  a  serious  editorial  saying  that  "  Bill 
Nye "  was  a  real  character.  Then  Mr.  Nye  would  get  his  scrap- 
book  and  read  this  serious  editorial  from  The  London  News : 

If  ever  celebrity  were  attained  unexpectedly,  most  assuredly  it  was  that  thrust 
upon  Bill  Nye  by  Truthful  James.  It  is  just  possible,  however,  that  the  innumera- 
ble readers  of  Mr.  Bret  Harte's  "  Heathen  Chinee"  may  have  imagined  Bill  Nye  and 
Ah  Sin  to  be  purely  mythical  personages.  So  far  as  the  former  is  concerned,  any 
such  conclusion  now  appears  to  have  been  erroneous.  Bill  Nye  is  no  more  a  phantom 
than  any  other  journalist,  although  the  name  of  the  organ  which  he  "runs"  savors 
more  of  fiction  than  of  fact.  But  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  matter,  for  the  Wash- 
ington correspondent  of  The  New  fork  Tribune  telegraphed  on  the  29th  instant,  that 
Bill  Nye  had  accepted  a  post  under  the  government.  He  has  lately  been  domiciled 
in  Laramie  City,  Wyoming  Territory,  and  is  editor  of  The  Daily  Boomerang.  In 
reference  to  Acting-Postmaster-Gen.  Hatton's  appointment  of  him  as  postmaster  at 
Laramie  City,  the  opponent  of  Ah  Sin  writes  an  extremely  humorous  letter,  "extend- 
ing" his  thanks,  and  advising  his  chief  of  his  opinion  that  his  "appointment  is  a 
triumph  of  eternal  truth  over  error  and  wrong."  Nye  continues:  "  It  is  one  of  the 
epochs,  I  may  say,  in  the  nation's  onward  march  toward  political  purity  and  perfec- 
tion. I  don't  know  when  I  have  noticed  any  stride  in  the  affairs  of  state  which  has 
so  thoroughly  impressed  me  with  its  wisdom."  In  this  quiet  strain  of  banter,  Bill 
Nye  continues  to  the  end  of  his  letter,  which  suggests  the  opinion  that,  whatever  the 
official  qualifications  of  the  new  postmaster  may  be,  the  inhabitants  of  Laramie  City 
must  have  a  very  readable  newspaper  in  The  Daily  Boomerang. 


308  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Below  I  give  a  specimen  of  Mr.  Nye's  handwriting : 


During  the  preparation  of  this  book,  Mr.  Nye  kindly  sent  me 
the  following  note,  which  gives  the  true  history  of  his  family  : 

Dear  Eli:  You  ask  me  how  I  came  to  adopt  the  nom  de  plume  of  Bill  Nye,  and 
I  can  truthfully  reply  that  I  did  not  do  so  at  all. 

My  first  work  was  done  on  a  territorial  paper  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  some 
twelve  years  ago,  and  was  not  signed.  The  style,  or  rather  the  lack  of  it,  provoked 
some  comment  and  two  or  three  personal  encounters.  Other  papers  began  to  won- 
der who  was  responsible,  and  various  names  were  assigned  by  them  as  the  proper 
one,  among  them  Henry  Nye,  James  Nye,  Robert  Nye,  etc. ,  and  a  general  discussion 
arose,  in  which  I  did  not  take  a  hand.  The  result  was  a  compromise,  by  which  I  was 
christened  Bill  Nye,  and  the  name  has  clung  to  me. 

I  am  not  especially  proud  of  the  name,  for  it  conveys  the  idea  to  strangers  that 
I  am  a  lawkss,  profane  and  dangerous  man.  People  who  judge  me  by  the  brief 
and  bloody  name  alone,  instinctively  shudder  and  examine  their  firearms.  It  sug- 
gests daring,  debauchery  and  defiance  to  the  law.  Little  children  are  called  in  when 


BILL  NTE.  309 

I  am  known  to  be  at  large,  and  a  day  of  fasting  is  announced  by  the  governor  of  the 
State.  Strangers  seek  to  entertain  me  by  showing  me  the  choice  iniquities  of  their 
town.  Eminent  criminals  ask  me  to  attend  their  execution  and  assist  them  in  accept- 
ing their  respective  dooms.  Amateur  criminals  ask  me  to  revise  their  work  and  to 
suggest  improvements. 

All  this  is  the  cruel  result  of  an  accident,  for  I  am  not  that  kind  of  a  man.  Had 
my  work  been  the  same,  done  over  the  signature  of  "Taxpayer"  or  "  Vox  Populi," 
how  different  might  have  been  the  result!  Seeking  as  I  am,  in  my  poor,  weak  way, 
to  make  folly  appear  foolish,  and  to  make  men  better  by  speaking  disrespectfully  of 
their  errors,  I  do  not  deserve  to  be  regarded,  even  by  strangers,  as  a  tough  or  a  ter- 
ror, but  rather  as  a  plain,  law-abiding  American  citizen,  who  begs  leave  to  subscribe 
himself,  Yours,  for  the  Public  Weal,  EDGAR  WILSON  NYE. 

One  day  I  asked  Mr.  Nye  how  he  kept  his  teeth  so  white. 

"  Oh,  that's  easy,"  he  said  ;  "  all  teeth  will  remain  white  if  they 
are  properly  taken  care  of.  Of  course  I  never  drink  hot  drinks, 
always  brush  my  teeth  morning  and  evening,  avoid  all  acids  what- 
ever, and,  although  I  am  forty  years  old,  my  teeth  are  as  good  as 
ever." 

"  And  that  is  all  you  do  to  preserve  your  teeth,  is  it  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Yes,  sir ;  that's  all — barring,  perhaps,  the  fact  that  I  put  them 
in  a  glass  of  soft  water  nights." 

Somebody  asked  Bill  what  he  thought  of  the  Democratic  party. 

"  The  Democratic  party  ?  "  he  repeated.  "  Why,  a  Democrat 
keeps  our  drug  store  over  there,  and  when  a  little  girl  burned  her 
arm  against  the  cook  stove,  and  her  father  went  after  a  package  of 
Russia  salve,  this  genial  drug  store  Democrat  gave  her  a  box  of 
'Rough  on  Rats.'  What  the  Democratic  party  needs,"  said  Mr. 
Nye,  "  is  not  so  much  a  new  platform  as  a  car-load  of  assorted 
brains  that  some  female  seminary  had  left  over." 

An  Englishman  was  talking  with  Mr.  Nye  about  English  and 
American  humor.  "  In  my  opinion,"  said  the  Englishman,  "  the 
humor  of  the  United  States,  if  closely  examined,  will  be  found  to 
depend,  in  a  great  measure,  on  the  ascendancy  which  the  principle 
of  utility  has  gained  over  the  imaginations  of  a  rather  imaginative 
people." 

"  Just  so,"  replied  Bill,  "  and,  according  to  my  best  knowledge, 
the  humor  of  England,  if  closely  examined,  will  be  found  just 
about  ready  to  drop  over  the  picket  fence  into  the  arena,  but  never 
quite  making  connections.  If  we  scan  the  English  literary  horizon, 
we  will  find  the  humorist  up  a  tall  tree,  depending  from  a  sharp 
knot  thereof  by  the  slack  of  his  overalls.  He  is  just  out  of  sight 


310  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

at  the  time  you  look  in  that  direction.  He  always  has  a  man  work- 
ing in  his  place,  however.  The  man  who  works  in  his  place  is  just 
paring  down  the  half  sole  and  newly  pegging  a  joke  that  has 
recently  been  sent  in  by  the  foreman  for  repairs." 

Speaking  of  mean  men  one  day,  Mr.  Nye  remarked: 

"  I've  seen  mean  men,  and  Laramie  used  to  have  the  meanest 
man  I  ever  knew — a  church  member,  too." 

"  How  mean  was  he  ?  "  asked  a  by-stander. 

"  Why,  he  was  so  mean  that  he  kept  a  Sunday  handkerchief, 
made  to  order,  with  scarlet  spots  on  it,  which  he  stuck  up  to  his 
nose  just  before  the  plate  started  round,  and  then  left  the  church 
like  a  house  on  fire.  So,  after  he  had  squeezed  out  the  usual  amount 
of  gospel,  he  slipped  around  the  corner  and  got  home  ten  cents 
ahead,  and  had  his  self-adjusting  nose-bleed  handkerchief  for 
another  trip." 

Mr.  Nye  was  the  guest  of  Lawrence  Barrett  and  Stuart  Robson, 
at  Cohasset,  Massachusetts. 

"When  asked,  how  he  enjoyed  his  visit,  he  said : 

"O,  finely.  Barrett  enjoyed  it  too.  You  know  he  was  in  Boston 
during  the  visit.  I  found  Robson,  however,  at  his  house,  walking 
under  the  trees  and  thoughtfully  eating  green  apples,  of  which  he 
is  passionately  fond.  He  raises  upward  of  sixty  barrels  of  apples 
on  his  estate  each  year,  any  one  of  which  is  fatal. 

"  'A  neighbor  of  mine  had  an  odd  experience  with  his  apples  the 
other  day,'  said  Robson.  '  He  has  some  of  this  same  breed.  It  is 
an  apple  which  will  turn  when  it  is  trodden  upon.  Nobody  but  a  cider- 
press  can  eat  one  and  live.  This  friend  of  mine  went  out  one  day 
and  discovered  a  boy,  named  James,  sitting  up  in  the  branches  of 
his  apple  tree,  eating  the  luscious  fruit,  and  filling  his  shirt  and 
trousers  with  enough  to  stay  his  stomach  when  he  got  home.  '  I 
wish  you  would  not  do  that,'  said  the  man.  '  I  do  not  care  so 
much  for  the  fruit,  but  you  are  breaking  the  tree  and  disfiguring  it.' 
'Oh  you  shut  up,'  retorted  the  lad,  knocking  the  man's  glasses  off, 
together  with  the  bridge  of  his  nose,  with  a  large  lignum-vitae  apple. 
'  If  you  don't  go  into  the  house  and  keep  quiet,  I  will  come  down 
there  and  injure  you/  'Very  well'  said  the  man,  "I  will  have  to 
go  to-morrow  and  tell  your  father  about  you  and  your  insulting 
language.'  'All  right,'  said  the  youth.  'Go  in,  you  old  pes- 
simist, and  get  the  razzle-dazzle,  if  you  wish.  I  will,  in  the  mean- 
time, select  a  few  more  of  your  mirth-provoking  fruit.' 


DO  NOT  SPEAK  OF  IT. 


See  page  311. 


BILL  NTE.  311 

"  The  next  day,  full  of  wrath,  the  man  went  over  to  the  boy's 
house,  and  said  to  the  father :  '  Sir,  I  have  come  to  do  a  very  dis- 
agreeable duty.  I  have  come  to  tell  you  of  your  boy  and  the  insult- 
ing language  he  used  to  me  yesterday." 

"  Do  not  speak  of  it,'  said  the  old  man,  softly.  '  He  told  the 
doctor  and  me  and  his  mother  about  it  last  night.  He  was  very 
sorry,  indeed,  very  sorry,  indeed.  Your  errand  is  unnecessary,  how- 
ever, sir,  the  boy  is  dead." 

A  few  years  ago  the  writer  passed  through  Laramie,  and  was 
introduced  to  an  audience  by  Mr.  !N"ye.  His  introduction  was  like 
this  : 

"Ladies  and  Gentlemen : — I  am  glad  that  it  has  devolved  upon 
me  to-night  to  announce  that  we  are  to  have  an  interesting  lecture 

on  Lying  by  one  of  the  most '  distinguished [There  was  a  long 

pause,  for  Mr.  Nye's  inflection  indicated  that  he  had  finished  and 
the  audience  roared  with  delight,  so  that  it  was  some  time  before 
the  sentence  was  concluded.]  lecturers  from  the  East." 

Mr.  IsTye  continued,  "  We  have  our  ordinary  country  liars  in 
Laramie ;  but  Mr.  Perkins  comes  from  the  metropolis.  Our  every- 
day liars  have  a  fine  record.  We  are  proud  of  them,  but  the  un- 
cultured liars  of  the  prairie  can  not  be  expected  to  cope  with  the 
gifted  and  more  polished  prevaricators  from  the  cultured  East. 
Ladies  and  gentlemen,  permit  me  to  introduce  to  you  Eliar 
Perkins." 

"  Ladies  and  Gentlemen"  I  said  in  reply,  "  I  feel  justly  flattered 
by  your  Laramie  humorist's  tribute  to  my  veracity ;  but  truly  I  am 

not  as  great  a  liar  as  Mr.  Nye "  and  then  I  seemed  to  falter.  The 

audience  saw  my  dilemma  and  applauded,  and  finally  I  couldn't  finish 
the  sentence  for  some  moments,  but  continuing  I  said,  "  I  am  not  as 
big  a  liar  as  Mr.  Nye would  have  you  think." 

A  day  or  two  after  this  I  picked  up  The  Boomerang  and  read 
this  paragraph: 

"  When  Mr.  Perkins  was  passing  through  Laramie,  he  said  he  was 
traveling  for  his  wife's  pleasure. 

" '  Then  your  wife  is  with  you  ? '  suggested  our  reporter. 

"  <  O,  no ! '  said  Eli,  <  she  is  in  New  York.' " 


312  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


BILL  STYE'S  BEST  SPEECHES  AND  LECTURES. 

One  of  Mr.  Nye's  happiest  hits  was  his  talk  at  the  recent  photog- 
raphers' convention  in  New  York.  Of  course  it  set  the  photog- 
raphers crazy  with  delight.  I  took  notes  of  the  speech,  and 
afterward  Mr.  Nye  corrected  them,  and  the  speech  now  appears  for 
the  first  time  printed  from  the  great  humorist's  demi-MSS.  the 
writer,  of  course  putting  in  the  applause,  etc. 

Said  Mr.  Nye,  after  being  introduced  to  the  photographers: 

Photographers  and  Gentlemen: — I  will  say  a  few  words  about  the 
photograph  habit.  [Laughter.] 

No  doubt  the  photograph  habit,  when  once  formed,  is  one  of  the 
most  baneful  and  productive  of  the  most  intense  suffering  in  after  years, 
of  any  with  which  we  are  familiar.  Sometimes  it  seems  to  me  that  my 
whole  life  has  been  one  long,  abject  apology  for  photographs  that  I  have 
shed  abroad  throughout  a  distracted  country. 

Man  passes  through  seven  distinct  stages  of  being  photographed,  each- 
one  exceeding  all  previous  efforts  in  that  line. 

First  he  is  photographed  as  a  prattling,  bald-headed  baby,  absolutely 
destitute  of  eyes,  [laughter]  but  making  up  for  this  deficiency  by  a 
wealth  of  mouth  that  would  make  a  negro  minstrel  olive  green  with  envy. 
We  often  wonder  what  has  given  the  average  photographer  that  wild, 
hunted  look  about  the  eyes  and  that  joyless  sag  about  the  knees.  The 
chemicals  and  the  in-door  life  alone  have  not  done  all  this.  It  is  the 
great  nerve  tension  and  mental  strain  used  in  trying  to  photograph  a 
squirming  and  dark  red  child  with  white  eyes,  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
please  its  parents.  [Great  laughter.] 

An  old-fashioned  dollar  store  album  with  cerebro-spinal  meningitis, 
and  filled  with  pictures  of  half -suffocated  children,  in  heavily-starched 
white  dresses,  is  the  first  thing  we  seek  on  entering  a  home,  and  the  last 
thing  from  which  Ave  reluctantly  part. 

The  second  stage  on  the  downward  road  is  the  photograph  of  the  boy 
with  fresh-cropped  hair,  and  in  which  the  stiff  and  protuberant  thumb 
takes  a  leading  part. 

Then  follows  the  portrait  of  the  lad,  with  strongly  marked  freckles 
and  a  look  of  hopeless  melancholy.  With  the  aid  of  a  detective  agency, 
I  have  succeeded  in  running  down  and  destroying  several  of  these  pic- 
tures which  were  attributed  to  me. 


BILL  NYE.  313 

Kext  comes  the  young  man,  twenty-one  years  of  age,  with  his  front 
hair  plastered  smoothly  down  over  his  tender,  throbbing  dome  of  thought. 
He  does  not  care  so  much  about  the  expression  on  the  mobile  features, 
so  long  as  his  left  hand,  with  the  new  ring  on  it,  shows  distinctly,  and 
the  string  of  jingling,  jangling  charms  on  his  watch  chain,  including 
the  cute  little  basket  cut  out  of  a  peach  stone,  stand  out  well  in  the  fore- 
ground. If  the  young  man  would  stop  to  think  for  a  moment  that 
some  day  he  may  become  eminent  and  ashamed  of  himself,  he  would 
hesitate  about  doing  this. 

Soon  after,  he  has  a  tintype  taken  in  which  a  young  lady  sits  in  the- 
alleged  grass,  while  he  stands  behind  her  with  his  hand  lightly  touching 
her  shoulder  as  though  he  might  be  feeling  of  the  thrilling  circumfer- 
ence of  a  buzz  saw.  He  carries  this  picture  in  his  pocket  for  months, 
and  looks  at  it  whenever  he  may  be  unobserved. 

Then,  all  at  once,  he  discovers  that  the  young  lady's  hair  is  not  done 
up  that  way  any  more,  and  that  her  hat  doesn't  seem  to  fit  her.  He 
then,  in  a  fickle  moment,  has  another  tintype  made,  in  which  another 
young  woman  [laughter]  with  a  more  recent  hat  and  later  coiffure,  is 
discovered  holding  his  hat  in  her  lap. 

This  thing  continues,  till  one  day  he  comes  into  the  studio  with  his 
wife,  and  tries  to  see  how  many  children  can  be  photographed  on  one 
negative  [laughter]  by  holding  one  on  each  knee  and  using  the  older 
ones  as  a  background. 

The  last  stage  in  his  eventful  career,  the  old  gentleman  allows  him- 
self to  be  photographed,  because  he  is  afraid  he  may  not  live  through 
another  long,  hard  winter,  and  the  boys  would  like  a  picture  of  him 
while  he  is  able  to  climb  the  dark,  narrow  stairs  which  lead  to  the 
artist's  room. 

Sadly  the  thought  comes  back  to  you  in  after  years,  when  his  grave 
is  green  in  the  quiet  valley,  and  the  worn  and  weary  hands  that  have 
toiled  for  you  are  forever  at  rest,  how  patiently  he  submitted  while  his 
daughter  pinned  the  clean,  stiff,  agonizing  white  collar  about  his  neck, 
and  brushed  the  velvet  collar  of  his  best  coat;  how  he  toiled  up  the  long, 
dark,  lonesome  stairs,  not  with  the  egotism  of  a  half  century  ago,  but 
with  the  light  of  anticipated  rest  at  last  in  his  eyes — obediently,  as  he 
would  have  gone  to  the  dingy  law  office  to  have  his  will  drawn — and 
meekly  left  the  outlines  of  his  kind  old  face  for  those  he  loved  and  for 
whom  he  had  so  long  labored.  [Applause.] 

It  is  a  picture  at  which  the  thoughtless  may  smile,  but  it  is  full  of 
pathos,  and  eloquent  for  those  who  knew  him  best.  His  attitude  is 
stiff  and  his  coat  hunches  up  in  the  back,  but  his  kind  old  heart  asserts 


314  KTXGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  A2H)  PULPIT. 

itself  through  the  gentle  eyes,  and  when  he  has  gone  away  at  last,  we  do 
not  criticise  the  picture  any  more,  but  beyond  the  old  coat  that  hunches 
up  in  the  back  and  that  lasted  so  long,  we  read  the  history  of  a  noble 
life.  [Applause.] 

Silently  the  old  finger-marked  album,  lying  so  unostentatiously  on 
the  gouty  center  table  shows  the  mile-stones  from  infancy  to  age,  and 
back  of  the  mistakes  of  a  struggling  photographer,  are  portrayed  the 
laughter  and  the  tears,  the  joys  and  griefs,  the  dimples  and  gray  hairs  of 
one  man's  lifetime.  [Applause.] 


THE  NYE-KILEY  LECTUKE. 

The  most  unique,  humorous  lecture  of  the  century  is  being1 
delivered  by  Mr.  Nyeand  James  "Whitcomb  Riley,  the  Hoosier  poet. 
It  consists  of  unique  stories  by  Bill  ISTye  and  humorous  or  pathetic 
poems  by  Mr.  Riley.  At  one  time  the  audience  is  all  in  tears  at 
Mr.  Riley's  pathos,  and  then  Mr.  Nye  gets  up  and  sets  them  scream- 
ing with  laughter.  It  don't  make  much  difference  what  Bill  Nye 
says,  for  his  dry  way  of  saying  it  is  enough  to  convulse  an  audience. 

Sometimes,  he  tells  about  his  dog,  which  he  called  Etymologist. 
"  I  called  him  thus,  because  I  understand  an  etymologist  spends  his 
time  collecting  insects,  and  my  dog  often  goes  out  on  his  researches 
and  returns  with  large  masses  of  fleas.  [Laughter.]  Then  he  eats 
many  curious  things  and  comes  home  and  regrets  it."  [Laughter.] 

The  humorist  tells  how  hard  it  is  for  a  reporter  to  succeed  now- 
a-days.  "They  have  to  be  very  enterprising.  A  Chicago  reporter 
was  detailed  to  write  up  a  case  of  dissection  in  the  medical  college. 
He  was  very  ambitious  and  went  to  his  work  early  in  the  day — 
hours  before  the  dissection  took  place.  Before  the  doctors  assem- 
bled, he  saw  the  corpse  lying  on  the  table.  To  kill  time,  he  com- 
menced writing  a  description  of  the  room  and  a  description  of  the 
corpse.  All  at. once  he  was  startled  to  see  the  corpse  move  and  then 
sit  bolt  upright  and  speak. 

"  *  Who  are  you  ? '   asked  the  corpse. 

"'I'm  a  writer  for  The  Morning  News.  Eugene  Field  is  my 
name.  I've  been  sent  here  to  describe  the  dissection.' 

"<  "What  are  you  writing  about  now  ? ' 

"'I'm  describing  the  appearance  of  the  room  and  the  corpse.' 

" '  O,  pshaw,  young  man,  you're  too  late  for  that.  I  sent  that  in 
to  the  Tribune  yesterday.' " 


BILL  NYE.  315 

Mr.  !Nye  commences  his  lecture  like  this : 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  .—The  earth  is  that  body  in  the  solar  system 
which  most  of  my  hearers  now  reside  upon,  and  which  some  of  you,  I 
regret  to  say,  modestly  desire  to  own  [laughter]  and  control,  forgetting 
that  "the  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fullness  thereof/'  Some  men  do 
not  care  who  owns  the  world  as  long  as  they  get  the  fullness.  [Laugh- 
ter.] 

The  earth  is  500,000,000  years  of  age,  according  to  Professor  Proctor, 
but  she  doesn't  look  so  to  me.  The  Duke  of  Argyll  maintains  that  she 
was  10,000,000  years  old  last  August,  but  what  does  an  ordinary  duke 
know  about  these  things?  So  far  as  I  am  concerned  I  will  put  Proctor's 
memory  against  that  of  any  low-priced  duke  that  I  have  ever  seen.  I 
know  there  is  a  yearning  in  lecture  communities  for  the  scientific  lecture. 
I  know  you  love  to  hear  the  figures  showing  the  distance  of  endless 
space  and  the  immensity  of  infinity.  [Laughter.]  These  statistics 
about  space  are  very  valuable.  Said  Professor  Proctor  in  his  lecture 
before  the  Social  Science  Congress: 

Space  is  very  large.  [Laughter.]  It  is  immense,  very  immense.  A  great  deal 
of  immensity  exists  in  space.  [Laughter.]  Space  has  no  top,  no  bottom.  In  fact, 
it  is  bottomless  both  at  the  bottom  and  at  the  top.  Space  extends  as  far  forward  as 
it  does  backward,  vice  versa.  [Laughter.]  There  is  no  compass  of  space,  nor  points 
of  the  compass,  and  no  boxing  of  the  compass.  A  billion  million  of  miles  traveled 
in  space  won't  bring  a  man  any  nearer  to  the  end  than  one  mile  or  one  inch.  Con- 
sequently, in  space  it's  better  to  stay  where  you  are,  and  let  well  enough  alone. 
[Laughter.] 

This  brings  me  to  George  Washington  Newton: 

Newton  claimed  that  the  earth  would  gradually  dry  up  and  become 
porous,  and  that  water  would  at  last  become  a  curiosity.  Many  believe 
this  and  are  rapidly  preparing  their  systems  by  a  rigid  course  of  treat- 
ment, so  that  they  can  live  for  years  without  the  use  of  water  [laughter] 
internally  or  externally. 

Qtiaer  scientists,  who  have  sat  up  nights  to  monkey  with  the  solar 
system,  and  thereby  shattered  their  nervous  systems,  claim  that  the 
earth  is  getting  top-heavy  at  the  north  pole,  and  that  one  of  these  days 
while  we  are  thinking  of  something  else,  the  great  weight  of  accumu- 
lated ice,  snow,  and  the  vast  accumulation  of  second-hand  arctic-relief 
expeditions  will  jerk  the  earth  out  of  its  present  position  with  so  much 
spontaneity,  and  in  such  an  extremely  forthwith  manner  [laughter] 
that  many  people  will  be  permanently  strabismused  and  much  bric-a- 
brac  will  be  for  sale  at  a  great  sacrifice.  This  may  or  may  not  be  true. 
I  have  not  been  up  in  the  arctic  regions  to  investigate  its  truth  or  falsity, 


316  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

though  there  seems  to  be  a  growing  sentiment  throughout  the  country  in 
favor  of  my  going.  [Laughter.]  A  great  many  people  during  the  past 
year  have  written  me  and  given  me  their  consent.  [Laughter.]  I  feel 
that  we  really  ought  to  have  a  larger  colony  on  ice  in  that  region  than 
we  now  have. 

The  earth  is  composed  of  land  and  water.  Some  of  the  water  has 
large  chunks  of  ice  in  it.  The  earth  revolves  around  its  own  axle  once 
in  twenty-four  hours,  though  it  seems  to  revolve  faster  than  that,  and 
to  wobble  a  good  deal,  during  the  holidays.  Nothing  tickles  the  earth 
more  'than  to  confuse  a  man  when  he  is  coming  home  late  at  night,  and 
then  to  rise  up  suddenly  [laughter]  and  hit  him  in  the  back  with  a 
town  lot.  [Laughter.]  People  who  think  there  is  no  fun  or  relaxation 
among  the  heavenly  bodies  certainly  have  not  studied  their  habits. 

A  friend  of  mine,  who  was  returning  late  at  night  from  a  regular 
meeting  of  the  Society  for  the  Amelioration  of  Something-or-other, 
said  that  the  earth  rose  up  suddenly  in  front  of  him,  and  hit  him  with  a 
right  of  way,  and  as  he  was  about  to  rise  up  again  lie  was  stunned  by 
a  terrific  blow  between  the  shoulder  blades  with  an  old  land  grant  that 
he  thought  had  lapsed  years  ago.  When  he  staggered  to  his  feet  he 
found  that  the  moon,  in  order  to  add  to  his  confusion,  had  gone  down 
in  front  of  him,  and  risen  again  behind  him,  with  her  thumb  on  her 
nose. 

So  I  say,  without  fear  of  successful  contradiction,  that  if  you  do  not 
think  that  planets  and  orbs  and  one  thing  and  another  have  fun  on  the 
quiet,  you  are  grossly  ignorant  of  their  habits. 

The  earth  is  about  half- way  bet  ween  Mercury  and  Saturn  in  the  mat- 
ter of  density.  Mercury  is  of  about  the  specific  gravity  of  iron,  while 
that  of  Saturn  corresponds  with  that  of  cork  in  the  matter  of  density 
and  specific  gravity.  [Laughter.]  The  earth,  of  course,  does  not  com- 
pare with  Mercury  in  the  matter  of  solidity,  yet  it  is  amply  firm  for  all 
practical  purposes.  A  negro  who  fell  out  of  the  tower  of  a  twelve-story 
building  while  trying  to  clean  the  upper  window  by  drinking  a  quart  of 
alcohol  and  then  breathing  hard  on  the  glass,  [laughter]  says  that  he  re- 
gards the  earth  as  perfectly  solid,  and  safe  to  do  business  on  for  years  to 
come.  [Laughter.]  He  claims  that  those  who  maintain  that  the  earth's 
crust  is  only  2,500  miles  in  thickness  have  not  thoroughly  tested  the 
matter  by  a  system  of  practical  experiments. 

The  poles  of  the  earth  are  merely  imaginary.  [Laughter.]  I  hate  to 
make  this  statement  in  public  in  such  a  way  as  to  injure  the  reputation  of 
great  writers  on  this  subject  who«  still  cling  to  the  theory  that  the  earth  re- 
volves upon  large  poles,  and  that  the  aurora  borealis  is  but  the  reflection 


BILL  N7E.  317 

from  a  hot  box  at  the  north  pole,  but  I  am  here  to  tell  the  truth,  and  if 
my  hearers  think  it  disagreeable  to  hear  the  truth,  what  must  be  my  an- 
guish who  have  to  tell  it.  [Laughter.]  The  mean  diameter  of  the  earth 
is  7,916  English  statute  miles,  but  the  actual  diameter  from  pole  to  pole 
is  a  still  meaner  diameter,  [laughter]  being  7,899  miles,  while  the  equa- 
torial diameter  is  7,925£  miles.  [Applause.] 

The  long  and  patient  struggle  of  our  earnest  and  tireless  geographers 
and  savants  in  past  years,  in  order  to  obtain  these  figures  and  have  them 
exact,  few  can  fully  realize.  The  long  and  thankless  job  of  measuring 
the  diameter  of  the  earth,  no  matter  what  the  weather  might  be — away 
from  home  and  friends — footsore  and  weary — still  plodding  on,  fatigued 
but  determined  to  know  the  mean  diameter  of  the  earth,  even  if  it  took 
a  leg — measuring  on  for  thousands  of  weary  miles,  and  getting  farther 
and  farther  away  from  home,  [laughter]  and  then  forgetting,  perhaps, 
how  many  thousand  miles  they  had  gone,  and  being  compelled  to  go 
back  and  measure  it  over  again  while  their  noses  got  red  and  their  fin- 
gers were  benumbed  and — [Great  laughter.] 

These,  fellow-citizens,  are  a  few  of  the  sacrifices  that  we  scientists 
have  made  on  your  behalf,  in  order  that  you  may  not  grow  up  in  ignor- 
ance. [Laughter.]  These  are  a  few  of  the  blessed  privileges  which, 
along  with  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  are  ours — ours  to 
anticipate,  ours  to  participate — ours  to  precipitate.  [Applause.] 

When  the  laughter  had  subsided,  Mr.  Riley  read  his  exquisite 
poem,  "  Afore  He  Knowed  who  Santy  Glaus  Wuz." 

Jes'  a  little  bit  o'  feller — I  remember  still — 

'Ust  to  almost  cry  fer  Christmas,  like  a  youngster  will. 

Fourth  o'  July's  nothin'  to  it ! — New  Year's  ain't  a  smell ; 

Easter  Sunday — Circus  day — jes'  all  dead  in  the  shell ! 

Lordy,  though  1    at  night,  you  know,  to  set  around  and  hear 

The  old  folks  work  the  story  off  about  the  sledge  and  deer. 

And  "  Santy"  skootin'  round  the  roof,  all  wrapped  in  fur  and  fuzz— 

Long  afore 

I  knowed  who 

"  Santy  Claus  "  wuz  I 

'Ust  to  wait,  and  set  up  late,  a  week  er  two  ahead  ; 
Couldn't  hardly  keep  awake,  ner  wouldn't  go  to  bed  ; 
Kittle  stewin'  on  the  fire,  and  mother  settin'  here 
Darnin'  socks,  and  rockin'  in  the  skreeky  rockin'- cheer. 
Pap  gap,  and  wunder  where  it  wuz  the  money  went, 
And  quar'l  with  his  frosted  heels,  and  spill  his  liniment ; 
And  me  a-dreamin'  sleigh-bells  when  the  clock  'ud  whir  and  buzz, 
Long  afore 

I  knowed  who 

•'  Santy  Claus"  wuz  ! 


318  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Size  the  fire-place  up,  and  figger  how  "  Old  Santy"  could 
Manage  to  come  down  the  chimbly,  like  they  said  he  would  : 
Wisht  that  I  could  hide  and  see  him — wundered  what  he'd  say 
Ef  he  ketched  a  feller  layin'  fer  him  that  way  ! 
But  I  bet  on  him,  and  liked  him,  same  as  ef  he  had 
Turned  to  pat  me  on  the  back  and  say,  "  Look  here,  my  lad, 
Here's  my  pack — jes'  he'p  yourse'f,  like  all  good  boys  does  !  " 
Long  afore 

I  knowed  who 

"  Santy  Claus"  wuz  ! 

Wisht  that  yarn  was  true  about  him,  as  it  'peared  to  be — 
Truth  made  out  o'  lies  like  that-un's  good  enough  fer  me  ! — 
Wisht  I  still  wuz  so  confidin'  I  could  jes'  go  wild 
Over  hangin'  up  my  stockin's,  like  the  little  child 
Climbin'  in  my  lap  to-night,  and  beggin'  me  to  tell 
'Bout  them  reindeers,  and  "  Old  Santy  "  that  she  loves  so  well  ; 
I'm  half  sorry  fer  this  little  girl-sweetheart  of  his — 
Long  afore 

She  knows  who 

"  Santy  Claus"  is  ! 

[Prolonged  applause.] 

Mr.  Nye  now  told  his  famous  story  about  little  George  Oswald. 
It  was  a  travesty  on  the  old-fashioned  stories  in  the  McGuffy's 
school  readers,  and  proved  how  true  merit  is  always  rewarded: 

One  day,  as  George  Oswald  was  going  to  his  tasks,  and  while  passing  through  the 
•wood,  he  spied  a  tall  man  approaching,  in  an  opposite  direction,  along  the  highway. 

"Ah,  "thought  George,  in  a  low,  mellow  tone  of  voice,  "whom  have  we  here?" 

"  Good  morning,  my  fine  fellow,"  exclaimed  the  stranger,  pleasantly.  "  Do  you 
reside  in  this  locality?" 

"  Indeed  I  do,"  retorted  George,  cheerily,  dropping  his  cap.  "  In  yonder  cottage, 
near  the  glen,  my  widowed  mother  and  her  thirteen  children  dwell  with  me." 

"  And  how  did  your  papa  die?"  asked  the  man,  as  he  thoughtfully  stood  on  the 
other  foot  awhile. 

"Alas,  sir,"  said  George,  as  a  large,  hot  tear  stole  down  his  pale  cheek  and  fell 
•with  a  loud  report  on  the  warty  surface  of  his  bare  foot,  "  he  was  lost  at  sea  in  a 
bitter  gale.  The  good  ship  foundered  two  years  ago  last  Christmastide,  and  father 
•was  foundered  [laughter]  at  the  same  time.  No  one  knew  of  the  loss  of  the  ship 
and  that  the  crew  was  drowned  until  the  next  spring,  and  it  was  then  too  late." 

"  And  what  is  your  age,  my  fine  fellow?"  quoth  the  stranger. 

"  If  I  live  until  next  October,"  said  the  boy,  in  a  declamatory  tone  of  voice,  suit- 
able for  a  second  reader,  "  I  will  be  seven  years  of  age." 

"And  who  provides  for  your  mother  and  her  large  family  of  children?"  queried 
the  man. 

"  Indeed,  I  do,  sir,"  replied  George,  in  a  shrill  tone.  "I  toil,  oh,  so  hard,  sir,  for  we 
are  very,  very  poor,  and  since  my  elder  sister,  Ann,  was  married  and  brought  her 
husband  home  to  live  with  us  [laughter]  I  have  to  toil  more  assiduously  than  hereto- 
fore." 


SEE  WHAT  I  HAVE  BROUGHT  YOU. 


See  page  319. 


BILL  NYE.  319 

"And  by  what  means  do  you  obtain  a  livelihood?"  exclaimed  the  man,  in  slowly 
measured  and  grammatical  words. 

"By  digging  wells,  kind  sir,"  [great  laughter]  replied  George,  picking  up  a 
tired  ant  as  he  spoke  and  stroking  it  on  the  back.  "  I  have  a  good  education,  and  so 
I  am  enabled  to  dig  wells  as  well  as  a  man.  I  do  this  daytimes  and  take  in  washing 
at  night.  [Laughter.]  In  this  way  I  am  enabled  to  maintain  our  family  in  a  pre- 
carious manner;  but,  oh,  sir,  should  my  other  sisters  marry  [laughter]  I  fear  that 
some  of  my  brothers  in-law  would  ha  veto  suffer."  [Loud  laughter.] 

"  You  are  indeed  a  brave  lad,"  exclaimed  the  stranger,  as  he  repressed  a  smile. 
"And  do  you  not  at  times  become  very  weary  and  wish  for  other  ways  of  passing 
your  time?" 

"Indeed  I  do,  sir,"  said  the  lad.  "  I  would  fain  run  and  romp  and  be  gay  like 
other  boys,  but  I  must  engage  in  constant  manual  exercise,  or  we  will  have  no  bread 
to  eat  and  I  have  not  seen  a  pie  since  papa  perished  in  the  moist  and  moaning  sea." 

"And  what  if  I  were  to  tell  you  that  your  papa  did  not  perish  at  sea,  but  was 
saved  from  a  watery  grave?"  asked  the  stranger  in  pleasing  tones. 

"Ah,  sir,"  exclaimed  George,  in  a  genteel  manner,  again  doffing  his  cap.  "  I'm 
too  polite  to  tell  you  what  I  would  say,  and  besides,  sir,  you  are  much  larger  than  I 
am."  [Laughter.] 

"But,  my  brave  lad,"  said  the  man,  in  low,  musical  tones,  "do  you  not  know 
me,  Georgie?  Oh,  George!"  [Great  laughter.] 

"  I  must  say,"  replied  George,  "  that  you  have  the  advantage  of  me.  Whilst  I 
may  have  met  you  before,  I  can  not  at  this  moment  place  you,  sir." 

"Hyson!  oh,  my  son !"  murmured  the  man,  at  the  same  time  taking  a  large 
strawberry  mark  out  of  the  valise  and  showing  it  to  the  lad.  "  Do  you  not  recognize 
your  parent  on  your  father's  side?  When  our  good  ship  went  to  the  bottom,  all  per- 
ished save  me.  I  swam  several  miles  through  the  billows,  and  at  last,  utterly 
exhausted,  gave  up  all  hope  of  life.  Suddenly  a  bright  idea  came  to  me  and  I  walked 
out  of  the  sea  and  rested  myself.  [Laughter.] 

"And  now,  my  brave  boy,"  exclaimed  the  man  with  great  glee,  "  see  what  Ihave 
brought  for  you."  It  was  but  the  work  of  a  moment  to  unclasp  from  a  shawl  strap, 
which  he  held  in  his  hand,  and  present  to  George's  astonished  gaze,  a  large  40  cent 
watermelon,  which  he  had  brought  with  him  from  the  Orient."  [Laughter.] 

"Ah,"  said  George,  "  this  is  indeed  a  glad  surprise.  Albeit,  how  can  I  ever 
repay  you?"  [Applause.] 

Mr.  Biley  now  read,  with  great  pathos,  his  story  of  "  Jim:" 

He  was  jes'  a  plain,  ever'-day,  all  round  kind  of  a  jour., 

Consumpted  lookin' — but  la! 
The  jokeyest,  wittiest,  story -tellia',  song-singin',  laughin'est,  jolliest 

Feller  you  ever  saw ! 
Worked  at  jes'  coarse  work,  but  you  kin  bet  he  was  fine  enough  in  his  talk, 

And  his  feelin's  too! 
Lordy !  ef  he  was  on'y  back  on  his  bench  agin  to-day,  a  carryin'  on 

Like  he  ust  to  do ! 


32C  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Any  shop-mate'll  tell  you  they  never  was  on  top  o'dirt 

A  better  feller'n  Jim! 
You  want  a  favor,  and  couldn't  git  it  anywheres  else — 

You  could  git  it  o'  him! 
Most  free-heartedest  man  thataway  in  the  world,  I  guess! 

Give  ever"  nickel  he's  worth — 
And,  ef  you'd  a- wanted  it  and  named  it  to  him,  and  ic  was  his, 

He'd  a  give  you  the  earth ! 

Allus  a-reachin'  out,  Jim  was,  and  a-helpin'  some 

Poor  feller  onto  his  feet — 
He'd  a-never  a-keered  how  hungry  he  was  hisse'f 

So's  the  feller  got  somepin  to  eat! 
Didn't  make  no  difference  at  all  to  him  how  he  was  dressed, 

He  ust  to  say  to  me: 
"  You  tog  out  a  tramp  purty  comfortable  in  winter-time, 

And  he'll  git  along!  "  says  he. 

Jim  didn't  have,  nor  never  could  git  ahead,  so  overly  much 

O'  this  world's  goods  at  a  time — 
'Fore  now  I've  saw  him,  more'n  onc't  lend  a  dollar  and  half  to 

Turn  'round  and  borrow  a  dime! 
Mebby  laugh  and  joke  about  hisse'f  fer  awhile — then  jerk  his  coat, 

And  kind  o'  square  his  chin, 
Tie  his  apern,  and  squat  hisse'f  on  his  old  shoe  bench 

And  go  peggin'  agin. 

Patientest  feller,  too,  I  reckon;  at  every  jes'  naturally 

Coughed  hisse'f  to  death! 
Long  enough  after  his  voice  was  lost  he'd  laugh  and  say, 

He  could  git  ever'  thing  but  his  breath — 
"  You  fellers,"  he'd  sorto'  twinkle  his  eyes  and  say, 

"  Is  a  pilin'  onto  me 
A  mighty  big  debt  for  that  air  little  weak-chested  ghost  o'  mine  to  pack 

Through  all  eternity! " 

Now  there  was  a  man  'at  jes'  'peared  like  to  me, 

'At  ornt't  a-never  died ! 
"  But  death  hain't  a-showin'  no  favors,"  the  old  boss  said, 

"  On'y  10  Jim,"  and  cried; 
And  AVigger,  'at  put  up  the  best  sewed  work  in  the  shop, 

Er  the  whole  blamed  neighborhood, 

He  says,    'When  God  made  Jim,  I  bet  you  He  didn't  do  any  thing  else  that 
day 

But  jes'  set  around  and  feel  good." 

Mr.  Nye  now  told  the  audience  how  he  saw  a  saw-mill  upon  the 
Northern  Wisconsin  Railway : 

Northern  "Wisconsin  is  the  place  where  they  yank  a  big  wet  log  into  a  mill  and 
turn  it  into  cash  as  quick  as  a  railroad  man  can  draw  his  salary  out  of  the  pay-car. 


BILL  NTE.  321 

The  log  is  held  on  a  carriage  by  means  of  iron  dogs  while  it  is  being  worked  into  lum- 
ber. These  iron  dogs  are  not  like  those  we  see  on  the  front  steps  of  a  brown  stone 
front  occasionally.  They  are  another  breed  of  dogs. 

The  managing  editor  of  the  mill  lays  out  the  log  in  his  mind  and  works  it  into 
dimension  stuff,  shingles,  bolts,  slabs,  edgings,  two-by-fours,  two-by-eights,  two-by- 
sixes,  etc.,  so  as  to  use  the  goods  to  the  best  advantage,  just  as  a  woman  takes  a  dress- 
pattern  and  cuts  it  so  she  won't  have  to  piece  the  front  breadths  and  will  still  have 
enough  left  to  make  a  polonaise  for  last  summer's  gown.  [Laughter.] 

I  stood  there  for  a  long  time,  watching  the  various  saws  and  listening  to  the  mon- 
strous growl  and  wishing  that  I  had  been  born  a  successful  timber-thief  instead  of  a 
poor  boy  without  a  rag  to  my  back. 

At  one  of  these  mills,  not  long  ago,  a  man  backed  up  to  get  away  from  the  car- 
riage and  thoughtlessly  backed  against  a  large  saw  that  was  revolving  at  the  rate  of 
about  two  hundred  times  a  minute.  The  saw  took  a  large  chew  of  tobacco  from  the 
plug  he  had  in  his  pistol  pocket  and  then  began  on  him. 

But  there's  no  use  going  into  the  details.  [Laughter.]  Such  things  are  not 
cheerful.  They  gathered  him  up  out  of  the  saw-dust  and  put  him  in  a  nail  keg  and 
carried  him  away,  but  he  did  not  speak  again.  Life  was  quite  extinct.  Whether  it 
was  the  nervous  shock  that  killed  him,  or  the  concussion  of  the  cold  saw  against  his 
liver  that  killed  him,  no  one  ever  knew. 

The  mill  shut  down  a  couple  of  hours  so  that  the  head  sawyer  could  file  his  saw 
[laughter],  and  then  work  was  resumed  once  more. 

We  should  learn  from  this  never  to  lean  on  the  buzz-saw  when  it  moveth  itself 
aright. 

RILEY  ON  ME  AND  MARY. 

All  my  feelin's  in  the  spring, 

Gits  so  blame  contrary 
I  can't  think  of  anything 

Only  me  and  Mary! 
"  Me  and  Mary!"  all  the  time, 

"  Me  and  Mary!"  like  a  rhyme 
Keeps  a-dingin'  en  till  I'm 

Sick  o'  "  Me  and  Mary!" 

"Me  and  Mary!  Ef  us  two 

Only  was  together — 
Playin'  like  we  used  to  do 

In  the  Aprile  weather!" 
All  the  night  and  all  the  day 

I  keep  wishin'  that  away 
Till  I'm  gittin'  old  and  gray 

Jist  on  "  Me  and  Mary!" 

Muddy  yit  along  the  pike 

Sense  the  winter's  freezin' 
And  the  orchard's  backard-like 

Bloomin'  out  this  season; 


322  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Only  lieerd  one  bluebird  yit — 

Nary  robin  er  tomtit; 
What's  the  how  and  why  of  it? 

S'pect  it's  "Me  and  Mary!" 

Me  and  Mary  liked  the  birds — 

That  is,  Mary  sorto 
Liked  them  first,  and  afterwerds 

Wy  I  thought  I  orto. 
And  them  birds — ef  Mary  stood 
Right  here  with  me  as  she  should — 
They'd  be  singin',  them  birds  would, 

All  fer  me  and  Mary ! 

Birds  er  not,  I'm  hopin'  some 

I  can  git  to  plowin': 
Ef  the  sun  '11  only  come 

And  the  Lord  allowin', 
Guess  to-morry  I'll  turn  in 
And  git  down  to  work  agin: 
This  here  loaferin  won't  win; 

Not  fer  me  and  Mary ! 

Fer  a  man  that  loves  like  me, 

And's  afeard  to  name  it, 
Till  some  other  feller,  he 

Gits  the  girl — dad-shame-it! 
Wet  er  dry — er  clouds  er  sun — 
Winter  gone,  er  jist  begun — 
Out-door  work  fer  me  er  none, 

No  more  "  Me  and  Mary  1 " 

One  of  Mr.  Nye's  best  stories  is  about  "William  Taylor,  a  good 
little  boy  in  Hudson,  Wisconsin. 

William,  the  son  of  the  present  American  consul  at  Marseilles,  was  a  good  deal 
like  other  boys  while  at  school  in  his  old  home  in  Hudson,  AVis.  One  day  he  called 
his  father  into  the  library  and  said: 

"Pa,  I  don't  like  to  tell  you,  but  the  teacher  and  I  have  had  trouble." 

"  What's  the  matter  now?  " 

"  Well,  I  cut  one  of  the  desks  a  little  with  my  knife,  and  the  teacher  says  I've 
got  to  pay  $1  or  take  a  lickin'! " 

"  Well,  why  don't  you  take  the  lickin'  and  say  nothing  more  about  it?  I  can 
stand  considerable  physical  pain,  so  long  as  it  visits  our  family  in  that  form.  Of 
course  it  is  not  pleasant  to  be  flogged,  but  you  have  broken  a  rule  of  the  school,  and 
I  guess  you'll  have  to  stand  it.  I  presume  that  the  teacher  will  in  wrath  remember 
mercy  and  avoid  disabling  you  so  that  you  can't  get  your  coat  on  any  more." 

"  But,  Pa,  I  feel  mighty  bad  over  it,  already,  and  if  you  would  pay  my  fine,  I'd 
never  do  it  again.  A  dollar  isn't  much  to  you,  Pa,  but  it's  a  heap  to  a  boy  who  hasn't 
a  cent.  If  I  could  make  a  dollar  as  easy  as  you  can,  Pa,  I'd  never  let  my  little  boy 


BILL  NTE.  323 

get  flogged  that  way  to  save  a  dollar.  If  I  had  a  little  feller  that  got  licked  bekuz  I 
didn't  put  up  for  him,  I'd  hate  the  sight  of  money  always.  I'd  feel  as  ef  every  dollar 
I  had  in  my  pocket  had  been  taken  out  of  my  little  child's  back." 

"  Well,  now,  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do,"  said  his  father.  "I'll  give  you  a  dollar 
to  save  you  from  punishment  this  time,  but  if  any  thing  of  this  kind  ever  occurs 
again  I'll  hold  you  while  the  teacher  licks  you,  and  then  I'll  get  the  teacher  to  hold 
you  while  I  lick  you.  That's  the  way  I  feel  about  that.  If  you  want  to  go  around 
whittling  up  our  educational  institutions  you  can  do  so;  but  you  will  have  to  pur- 
chase them  afterward  yourself.  [Laughter.]  I  don't  propose  to  buy  any  more 
damaged  furniture.  You  probably  grasp  my  meaning,  do  you  not?  I  send  you  to 
school  to  acquire  an  education,  not  to  acquire  liabilities,  so  that  you  can  come  around 
and  make  an  assessment  on  me.  [Laughter.]  I  feel  a  great  interest  in  you,  Willie, 
but  I  do  not  feel  as  though  it  should  be  an  assessable  interest.  I  want  to  go  on,  of 
course,  and  improve  the  property,  but  when  I  pay  my  dues  on  it,  I  want  to  know 
that  it  goes  toward  development  work.  I  don't  want  my  assessments  to  go  toward 
the  purchase  of  a  school-desk  with  American  hieroglyphics  carved  on  it.  I  hope  you 
will  bear  this  in  mind,  my  son,  and  beware.  It  will  be  greatly  to  your  interest  to 
beware.  If  I  were  in  your  place  I  would  put  in  a  large  portion  of  my  time  in  the 
beware  business." 

The  boy  took  the  dollar  and  went  thoughtfully  away  to  school,  and  no  more  was 
ever  said  about  the  matter  until  Mr.  Taylor  learned,  casually,  several  months  later,  that 
the  Spartan  youth  had  received  the  walloping  and  filed  away  the  $1  for  future  refer- 
ence. [Laughter.]  The  boy  was  afterward  heard  to  say  that  he  favored  a  much 
higher  fine  in  cases  of  that  kind.  One  whipping  was  sufficient,  he  said,  but  he 
favored  a  fine  of  $5.  It  ought  to  be  severe  enough  to  make  it  an  object.  [Laugh- 
ter.] 

Mr.  Kiley  now  gave  his  experience  in  the  late  war: 

I  was  for  union — you  agin  it — 

'  Pears  like,  to  me,  each  side  was  winner; 
Lookin'  at  now  and  all  'at's  in  it. 

Let's  go  to  dinner. 

Le's  kind  o'  jes'  set  down  together 

And  do  some  pardncrship  fergettin' — 
Talk,  say,  for  instance,  'bout  the  weather. 
Er  somepin  fittin'. 

The  war,  you  know,  's  all  done  and  ended 

And  ain't  changed  no  p'ints  o'  the  compass; 
Both  North  and  South  the  health's  jes'  splendid 
As  'fore  the  rumpus. 

The  old  farms  and  the  old  plantations 

Still  occupies  the'r  old  positions — 
•  ?  Le's  git  back  to  old  situations 

And  old  ambitions. 

Le's  let  up  on  this  blame,  infernal, 

Tongue-lashin'  and  lap-jacket  vauntin' 
And  git  home  to  the  eternal, 


21 


Ca'm  we're  a-wantin'. 


324  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Peace  kind  o'  sort  o'  suits  my  diet — 

When  women  does  my  cookin'  for  me — 
Ther'  wasn't  overly  much  pie  eat 

Durin'  the  army.     [Applause.] 

Mr.  Nye  now  told  some  of  his  famous  cyclone  stories : 

While  I  was  traveling  out  in  Kansas  the  passengers  got  to  talking  about  natural 
phenomena  and  storms.  I  spoke  of  the  cyclone  with  some  feeling  and  a  little  bitter- 
ness, perhaps,  briefly  telling  my  own  experience,  and  making  the  storm  as  loud,  and 
wet  and  violent  as  possible. 

Then  a  gentleman  from  Kansas,  named  George  L.  Murdock,  an  old  cattleman, 
was  telling  of  a  cyclone  that  came  across  his  range  two  years  ago  last  September. 
The  sky  was  clear  to  begin  with,  and  then  all  at  once,  as  Mr.  Murdock  states,  a  little 
cloud,  no  larger  than  a  man's  hand  might  have  been  seen.  It  moved  toward 
the  southwest  gently,  with  its  hands  iii  its  pockets  for  a  few  moments,  and 
then  Mr.  Murdock  discovered  that  it  was  of  a  pale-green  color,  about  sixteen  hands 
high,  with  dark-blue  mane  and  tail.  [Laughter.]  About  a  mile  from  where  he  stood 
the  cyclone,  with  great  force,  swooped  down  and,  with  a  muffled  roar,  swept  a 
quarter-section  of  land  out  from  under  a  heavy  mortgage  without  injuring  the  mort- 
gage in  the  least.  He  says  that  people  came  for  miles  the  following  day  to  see 
the  mortgage,  still  on  file  at  the  office  of  the  register  of  deeds,  and  just  as  good  as 
ever. 

Then  a  gentleman  named  Bean,  of  Western  Minnesota,  a  man  who  went  there  in 
an  early  day  and  homesteaded  it  when  his  nearest  neighbor  was  fifty  miles  away, 
spoke  of  a  cyclone  that  visited  his  county  before  the  telegraph  or  railroad  had  pene- 
trated that  part  of  the  State. 

Mr.  Bean  said  it  was  very  clear  up  to  the  moment  that  he  noticed  a  cloud  in  the 
Northwest  no  larger  than  a  man's  hand.  [Laughter.]  It  sauntered  down  in  a  south- 
westerly direction,  like  a  cyclone  that  had  all  summer  to  do  its  chores  in.  Then  it 
gave  two  quick  snorts  and  a  roar,  wiped  out  of  existence  all  the  farm  buildings  he 
had,  sucked  the  well  dry,  soured  aH  the  milk  in  the  milk  house,  and  spread  desola- 
tion all  over  that  quarter-section.  But  Mr.  Bean  said  that  the  most  remarkable  thing 
he  remembered  was  this:  He  had  dug  about  a  pint  of  angle  worms  that  morning, 
intending  to  go  over  to  the  lake  toward  evening  and  catch  a  few  perch.  But  when 
the  cyclone  came  it  picked  up  those  angle  worms  and  drove  them  head  first  through 
his  new  grindstone  without  injuring  the  worms  [laughter]  or  impairing  the  grind- 
stone. [Laughter.]  He  would  have  had  the  grindstone  photographed,  he  said,  if 
the  angle  worms  could  have  been  kept  still  long  enough.  He  said  that  they  were 
driven  just  far  enough  through  to  hang  on  the  other  side  like  a  lambrequin. 

The  cyclone  is  certainly  a  wonderful  phenomenon,  its  movements  are  so  erratic, 
and  in  direct  violation  of  all  known  rules. 

Mr.  Louis  P.  Barker,  of  northern  Iowa,  was  also  on  the  car,  and  he  described  a 
cyclone  that  he  saw  in  the  '70's,  along  in  September,  at  the  close  of  a  hot,  but  clear 
day.  The  first  intimation  that  Mr.  Barker  had  of  an  approaching  storm  was  a  small 
cloud  no  larger  than  a  man's  hand  [laughter],  which  he  discovered  moving  slowly 
toward  the  southwest  with  a  gyratory  movement.  It  then  appeared  to  be  a  funnel- 
shaped  cloud,  which  passed  along  near  the  surface  of  the  ground,  with  its  apex 
now  and  then  lightly  touching  a  barn  or  a  well,  and  pulling  it  out  by  the  roots.  It 


BILL  NYE.  325 

would  then  bound  hghtly  into  the  air  and  spit  on  its  hands.  What  he  noticed  most 
carefully  on  the  following  day  was  the  wonderful  evidences  of  its  powerful  suction. 
It  sucked  a  milch  cow  absolutely  dry,  pulled  all  the  water  out  of  his  cistern,  and 
then  went  around  to  the  waste-water  pipe  that  led  from  the  bath-room  and  drew  a 
two-year-old  child,  who  was  taking  a  bath  at  the  time,  clear  down  through  the  two- 
inch  waste-pipe,  a  distance  of  150  feet.  [Laughter.]  He  had  two  inches  of  the  pipe 
*\  ith  him  and  a  lock  of  hair  from  the  child's  head. 

It  is  such  circumstances  as  these,  coming  to  us  from  the  mouths  of  eye-witnesses, 
that  lead  us  to  exclaim:  How  prolific  is  nature,  and  how  wonderful  are  all  her  works, 
including  poor,  weak  man!  Man,  who  comes  into  the  world  clothed  in  a  little  brief 
authority,  perhaps,  and  nothing  else  to  speak  of.  [Laughter.]  He  rises  up  in  the 
morning,  prevaricates,  and  dies.  "Where  are  our  best  liars  to-day?  Look  for  them 
where  you  will,  and  you  will  find  that  they  are  passing  away.  Go. into  the  cemetery, 
and  there  you  will  find  them  mingling  with  the  dust,  but  striving  still  to  perpetuate 
their  business  by  marking  their  tombs  with  a  gentle  prevarication,  chiseled  in  enduring 
stone.  [Laughter.] 

I  have  heard  it  intimated  by  people  who  seemed  to  know  what  they  were  talking 
about,  that  truth  is  mighty  and  will  prevail,  but  I  do  not  see  much  show  for  her  till 
the  cyclone  season  is  over.  [Laughter.] 


RILEY'S  GOOD-BYE  ER  HOWDY-DO. 

Say  good-bye  er  howdy-do — 
What's  the  odds  betwixt  the  two? 
Comin' — goin' — every  day — 
Best  friends  first  to  go  away — 
Grasp  of  hands  you'd  ruther  hold 
Than  their  weight  in  solid  gold, 
Slips  their  grip  while  greetin'  you— 
Say  good-bye  er  howdy -do? 

Howdy-do,  and  then,  good-bye — 
Mixes  jest  like  laugh  and  cry; 
Deaths  and  births,  and  worst  and  best 
Tangled  their  contrariest; 
Ev'ry  jinglin'  weddin'-bell 
Skeearin'  up  some  funeral  knell. 
Here's  my  song,  and  there's  your  sigh: 
Howdy-do,  and  then,  good-bye  1 

Say  good-bye  er  howdy -do — 

Jest  the  same  to  me  and  you; 

'Tain't  worth  while  to  make  no  fuss, 

'Cause  the  job's  put  up  on  us! 

Some  one's  runnin'  this  concern 

That's  got  nothin'  else  to  learn — 

If  he's  willin,'  we'll  pull  through. 

Say  good-bye  er  howdy-do!    [Applause.] 


326  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


BILL  NYE  MAKES  ROME  HOWL  ! 

It  had  been  a  day  of  triumph  in  Capua.  Lentulus,  returning  with 
victorious  eagles,  had  amused  the  populace  with  the  sports  of  the  amphi- 
theatre to  an  extent  hitherto  unknown,  even  in  that  luxurious  city.  A 
large  number  of  people  from  the  rural  districts  had  taken  advantage  of 
half  rates  on  the  railroad,  and  had  been  in  town  watching  the  conflict 
in  the  arena,  listening  to  the  infirm,  decrepit  ring  joke,  and  viewing  the 
bogus,  sacred  elephant. 

The  shouts  of  revelry  had  died  away.  The  last  loiterer  had  retired 
from  the  free-lunch  counter,  and  the  lights  in  the  palace  of  the  victor 
were  extinguished.  The  restless  hyena  in  the  Roman  menagerie  had 
sunk  to  rest,  and  the  Numidian  lion  at  the  stock  yards  had  taken  out 
his  false  teeth  for  the  night.  The  moon,  piercing  the  tissue  of  fleecy 
clouds,  tipped  the  dark  waters  of  the  Tiber  with  a  wavy,  tremu- 
lous light.  The  dark-browed  Roman  soldier  moved  on  his  homeward 
way,  the  sidewalk  flipping  up  occasionally  and  hitting  him  in  the  small 
of  the  back.  No  sound  was  heard  save  the  low  sob  of  some  retiring 
wave  as  it  told  its  story  to  the  smooth  pebbles  on  the  beach,  or  the 
unrelenting  boot-jack  as  it  struck  the  high  fence  in  the  back  yard, 
just  missing  the  Roman  tom-cat  in  its  mad  flight,  and  then  all  was  still 
as  the  breast  when  the  spirit  has  departed.  Anon  the  half -stifled  Roman 
snore  would  steal  in  upon  its  deathly  stillness,  and  then  die  away  like  a 
hot  biscuit  in  the  hands  of  the  hired  man. 

In  the  green  room  of  the  amphitheatre  a  little  band  of  gladiators 
were  assembled.  The  foam  of  conflict  yet  lingered  on  their  lips,  the 
scowl  of  battle  yet  hung  upon  their  brows,  and  the  large  knobs  on  their 
profiles  indicated  that  it  had  been  a  busy  day  with  them  in  the  arena. 

There  was  an  embarrassing  silence  of  about  five  minutes,  when 
Spartacus,  gently  laying  his  chew  of  tobacco  on  the  banister,  stepped 
forth  and  addressed  them: 

"Mr.  Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — Ye  call  me  chief,  and 
ye  do  well  to  call  him  chief  who  for  twelve  long  years  has  met  in  the 
arena  every  shape  of  man  or  beast  that  the  broad  empire  of  Rome  could 
furnish,  and  yet  has  never  squealed.  I  do  not  say  this  egotistically, 
but  simply  to  show  that  I  am  the  star  thumper  of  the  entire  outfit. 

"  If  there  be  one  among  you  who  can  say  that  ever  in  public  fight, 
or  private  brawl,  my  actions  did  belie  my  words,  let  him  stand  forth 
and  say  it,  and  I  will  spread  him  around  over  the  arena,  till  the  coroner 
will  have  to  soak  him  out  of  the  ground  with  benzine.  If  there  be  three  in 


BILL  NTS.  327 

all  your  company  dare  face  me  on  the  bloody  sands,  let  them  come,  and 
I  will  construct  upon  their  physiognomy  such  cupolas  and  cornices  and 
dormer  wiridows  and  Corinthian  capitals,  and  entablatures,  that  their 
own  masters  would  pass  them  by  in  the  broad  light  of  high  noon 
unrecognized. 

"  And  yet,  I  was  not  always  thus — a  hired  butcher — the  savage  chief 
of  still  more  savage  men.  My  ancestors  came  from  Sparta,  Wisconsin, 
and  settled  among  the  vine-clad  hills  and  citron  groves  of  Syracuse.  My 
early  life  ran  as  quiet  as  the  clear  brook  by  which  I  sported.  Aside 
from  the  gentle  patter  of  my  angel  mother's  slipper  on  the  bustle  of  my 
overalls,  every  thing  moved  along  with  the  still  and  rhythmic  flow  of 
goose  grease.  My  boyhood  was  one  long,  happy  summer  day.  We  stole 
•the  Roman  muskmelon,  and  put  split  sticks  on  the  tail  of  the  Roman 
dog,  and  life  was  a  picnic  and  a  hallelujah. 

"When,  at  noon,  I  led  the  sheep  beneath  the  shade,  and  played  'Lit- 
tle Sally  Waters'  on  my  shepherd's  flute,  there  was  another  Spartan 
youth,  the  son  of  a  neighbor,  to  join  me  in  the  pastime;  we  led  our 
flocks  to  the  same  pasture,  and  together  picked  the  large  red  ants  out  of 
our  doughnuts. 

"One  evening,  after  the  sheep  had  been  driven  into  the  corral,  and 
we  were  all  seated  beneath  the  '  Bammygilead '  tree  that  shaded  our 
cottage,  my  grandsire,  an  old  man,  was  telling  of  Marathon  and 
Leuctra,  and  Dr.  Mary  Walker,  and  other  great  men,  and  how  a  little 
band  of  Spartans  at  Milwaukee  had  stood  off  the  police,  and  how  they 
fled  away  into  the  mountains  and  there  successfully  held  an  annual  pass 
over  the  railway.  Held  it  for  a  year!  I  did  not  know  then  what  war 
was,  but  my  cheeks  burned,  I  knew  not  why,  and  I  thought  what  a 
glorious  thing  it  would  be  to  leave  the  reservation  and  go  upon  the 
war  path.  But  my  mother  kissed  my  throbbing  temples,  and  bade  me 
go  and  soak  my  head  and  think  no  more  of  those  old  tales  and  savage 
wars.  That  very  night  the  Romans  landed  on  our  coasts.  They  pil- 
laged the  whole  country,  burned  the  agency  buildings,  demolished  the 
ranch,  rode  off  the  stock,  tore  down  the  smoke-house,  and  ran  their 
war  horses  over  the  cucumber  vines. 

"  To-day  I  killed  a  man  in  the  arena,  and  when  I  broke  his  helmet 
clasps  and  looked  upon  him,  behold!  he  was  my  friend.  The  same  sweet 
smile  was  on  his  face  that  I  had  known  when,  in  adventurous  boyhood, 
we  bathed  in  the  glassy  lake  by  our  Spartan  home,  and  he  had  tied  my 
shirt  into  1,752  dangerous  and  difficult  knots.  He  knew  me,  smiled 
faintly,  told  me  always  to  tell  the  truth,  and  then  ascended  the  golden 
stair.  I  begged  of  the  Prastor  that  I  might  be  allowed  to  bear  away  the 


328  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

body  and  have  it  packed  in  ice  and  shipped  to  his  relatives  at  Sparta, 
Wisconsin,  but  he  couldn't  see  it.  As  upon  my  bended  knees,  amid  the 
dust  and  blood  of  the  arena,  I  begged  this  poor  boon,  and  the  Praetor 
answered:  '  Let  the  carrion  rot.  There  are  no  noblemen  but  Romans 
and  Ohio  men.  Let  the  show  go  on.  Bring  forth  the  bobtail  lion  from 
Abyssinia.'  And  the  assembled  maids  and  matrons  and  the  rabble 
shouted  in  derision,  and  told  me  to  '  brace  up,'  and  they  threw  peanut 
shells  at  me  and  told  me  to  '  cheese  it,'  with  other  Roman  flings  which  I 
do  not  now  recall. 

"And  so  must  you,  fellow  gladiators,  and  so  must  I,  die  like  dogs. 
To-morrow  we  are  billed  to  appear  at  the  Coliseum  at  Rome,  and  reserved 
seats  are  even  now  being  sold  at  No.  162  East  Third  Street,  St.  Paul,  for 
our  moral  and  instructive  performance,  while  I  am  speaking  to  you. 

fe  Ye  stand  here  like  giants  as  ye  are,  but  to-morrow  some  Roman 
dude  will  pat  your  red  brawn  and  bet  his  shekels  upon  your  blood. 

"0  Rome!  Rome!  Thou  hast  been  a  tender  nurse  to  me.  Thou  hast 
given  to  that  gentle,  timid,  shepherd  lad,  who  never  knew  a  harsher 
tone  than  a  flute  note,  muscles  of  iron  and  a  heart  of  steel.  Thou  hast 
taught  him  to  drive  his  sword  through  plaited  mail  and  links  of  rugged 
brass  and  warm  it  in  the  stomach  of  his  foe;  to  gaze  into  the  glaring  eye- 
balls of  a  fierce  Numidian  lion  even  as  the  smooth-cheeked  senator  looks 
into  the  laughing  eyes  of  the  chambermaid.  And  he  shall  pay  thee  back 
till  the  rushing  Tiber  is  red  as  frothing  wine,  and  in  its  deepest  ooze  thy 
life  blood  lies  curdled.  Ye  doubtless  hear  the  gentle  murmur  of  my 
bazoo. 

"  Hark!  Hear  ye  yon  lion  roaring  in  his  den?  'Tis  three  days  since 
he  tasted  flesh,  but  to-morrow  he  will  have  gladiator  on  toast,  and  don't 
you  forget  it,  and  he  will  fling  your  vertebrae  around  his  cage  and  wipe 
his  nose  on  your  clustering  hair. 

"  If  ye  are  brutes,  then  stand  here  like  fat  oxen  waiting  the  butcher's 
knife.  If  ye  are  men,  arise  and  follow  me!  Strike  down  the  warden 
and  the  turnkey,  slide  our  baggage  out  the  third-story  window  of  the 
amphitheatre,  overpower  the  public  and  cut  for  the  tall  timber! 

"0  comrades!  Warriors!  Gladiators!  If  we  be  men,  let  us  die  like 
men,  beneath  the  blue  sky  and  by  the  still  waters,  and  be  buried  accord- 
ing to  Hoyle  instead  of  having  our  shin-bones  polished  off  by  Numidian 
lions,  amid  the  groans  and  hisses  of  the  populace  here  in  Rome,  New 
York.  Let  us  break  loose,  chaw  the  ear  of  the  night  watchman  and 
go  to  farming  in  Dakota!  Then  if  the  fierce  Roman  don't  like  our  style, 
he  knows  our  postoffice  address."  [Applause.] 


BILL  NTS.  329 


BILL  WRITES  HIS  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

One  of  the  most  humorous  things  from  the  pen  of  the  great 
humorist  is  his  biography,  written  for  this  book. 

EDITOR  KINGS  OF  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT: — I  send  you  my  auto- 
biography, written  by  myself. 

Edgar  Wilson  Nye  was  born  in  Maine,  in  1850,  August  25th,  but  at 
two  years  of  age  he  took  his  parents  by  the  hand,  and,  telling  them  that 
Piscataquis  county  was  no  place  for  them,  he  boldly  struck  out  for  St. 
Croix  county,  Wisconsin,  where  the  hardy  young  pioneer  soon  made  a 
home  for  his  parents.  The  first  year  he  drove  the  Indians  out  of  the  St. 
Croix  Valley,  and  suggested  to  the  North- Western  Railroad  that  it  would 
be  a  good  idea  to  build  to  St.  Paul  as  soon  as  the  company  could  get  a 
grant  which  would  pay  them  two  or  three  times  the  cost  of  construction. 
The  following  year  he  adopted  trousers,  and  made  $175  from  the  sale  of 
wolf  scalps.  He  also  cleared  twenty-seven  acres  of  land,  and  raised  some 
watermelons.  In  1854  he  established  and  endowed  a  district  school  in 
Pleasant  Valley.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  began  to  turn  his  attention 
to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  South,  and  to  write  articles  for  the 
press,  signed  "  Veritas,"  in  which  he  advocated  the  war  of  1860,  or  as  soon 
as  the  government  could  get  around  to  it. 

In  1855  he  graduated  from  the  farm  and  began  the  study  of  law.  He 
did  not  advance  very  rapidly  in  this  profession,  failing  several  times  in 
his  examination,  and  giving  bonds  for  his  appearance  at  the  next  term 
of  court.  He  was,  however,  a  close  student  of  political  economy,  and 
studied  personal  economy  at  the  same  time,  till  he  found  that  he  could 
live  on  ten  cents  a  day  and  his  relatives,  easily. 

Mr.  Nye  now  began  to  look  about  him  for  a  new  country  to  build  up 
and  foster,  and,  as  Wisconsin  had  grown  to  be  so  thickly  settled  in  the 
northwestern  part  of  the  State  that  neighbors  were  frequently  found  as 
near  as  five  miles  apart,  he  broke  loose  from  all  restraint  and  took  emi- 
grant rates  for  Cheyenne,  Wyoming.  Here  he  engaged  board  at  the 
Inter-Ocean  Hotel,  and  began  to  look  about  him  for  a  position  in  a  bank. 
Not  succeeding  in  this,  he  tried  the  law  and  journalism.  He  did  not 
succeed  in  getting  a  job  for  some  time,  but  finally  hired  as  associate 
editor  and  janitor  of  the  Laramie  Sentinel.  The  salary  was  small,  but 
his  latitude  great,  and  he  was  permitted  to  write  anything  that  he  thought 
would  please  the  people,  whether  it  was  news  or  not. 


330  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

By  and  by  he  had  won  every  heart  by  his  gentle,  patient  poverty  and 
his  delightful  parsimony  with  regard  to  facts.  With  a  hectic  imagina- 
tion and  an  order  on  a  restaurant  which  advertised  in  the  paper,  he 
scarcely  cared  the  livelong  day  whether  school  kept  or  not. 

Thus  he  rose  to  justice  of  the  peace,  and  finally  to  an  income  which 
is  reported  very  large  to  everybody  but  the  assessor. 

He  is  the  father  of  several  very  beautiful  children  by  his  first  wife, 
who  is  still  living.  She  is  a  Chicago  girl,  and  loves  her  husband  far 
more  than  he  deserves.  He  is  pleasant  to  the  outside  world,  but  a  per- 
fect brute  in  his  home.  He  early  learned  that,  in  order  to  win  the  love 
of  his  wife,  he  should  be  erratic,  and  kick  the  stove  over  on  the  children 
when  he  came  home.  He  therefore  asserts  himself  in  this  way,  and  the 
family  love  and  respect  him,  being  awed  by  his  greatness  and  gentle 
barbarism. 

He  eats  plain  food  with  both  hands,  conversing  all  the  time  pleas- 
antly with  any  one  who  may  be  visiting  at  the  house.  If  his  children 
do  not  behave,  he  kicks  them  from  beneath  the  table  till  they  roar  with 
pain,  as  he  chats  on  with  the  guests  with  a  bright  and  ever-flowing  stream 
of  bon  mots,  which  please  and  delight  those  who  visit  him  to  that  degree 
that  they  almost  forget  that  they  have  had  hardly  anything  to  eat. 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  Nye  is  in  every  respect  a  lovely  character.  He 
feared  that  injustice  might.be  done  him,  however,  in  this  biographical 
sketch,  and  so  he  has  written  it  himself.  B.  N. 


EOBEET  GL  IKOEBSOLL. 


INGERSOLL. 

POET,   ORATOR   AND   CRITIC. 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

Robert  Green  Ingersoll  was  born  in  Dresden,  New  York,  in  1833.  His  father  was 
an  austere  Presbyterian  clergyman.  In  early  life  Mr.  Ingersoll  studied  law  and 
settled  in  Peoria,  Illinois.  He  made  many  eloquent  speeches  in  his  early  life,  but 
his  magnetic  speech  nominating  Elaine  to  the  presidency,  in  1880,  brought  him  a 
national  reputation.  His  agnostic  views  on  religious  dogmas  have  created  discussions 
in  two  hemispheres.  He  has  measured  swords  with  Talmage  and  Judge  Black,  and 
even  the  great  Gladstone  considered  Ingersoll  a  warrior  worthy  of  his  steel.  Mr. 
Ingersoll  has  written  many  books,  which  have  been  read  on  two  continents,  and  which 
have  been  translated  into  German  and  French.  His  lectures  on  the  "Mistakes  of 
Moses,"  and  "Liberty  for  Man,  Woman  and  Child,"  have  been  listened  to  from  San 
Francisco  to  Halifax.  The  great  Agnostic  is  beloved  by  his  personal  friends  for  his 
charities  and  love  for  his  fellow-man.  He  now  resides  on  Fifth  avenue,  New  York, 
in  a  beautiful  home,  surrounded  by  countless  friends,  his  beautiful  daughters  and  a 
devoted  wife. 

Ingersoll  is  the  John  the  Baptist  of  Agnosticism — an  eloquent 
voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  In  writing  about  the  eloquence  and 
humor  of  the  century,  you  could  no  more  leave  out  Ingersoll  than 
the  scientists  could  leave  out  Huxley,  Darwin  and  Herbert  Spencer. 
Even  Gladstone,  who  stands  on  the  pinnacle  of  England's  intelli- 
gence, had  to  come  out  and  measure  swords  with  the  witty  Agnos- 
tic. We  may  all  differ  from  Ingersoll's  theology,  but  we  must  love 
him  for  being  the  Apostle  of  Freedom — "  freedom  for  man,  woman 
and  child." 

Ingersoll  is  one  of  the  most  charming  conversers  of  the  age, 
and  his  house  is  constantly  filled  with  the  brainiest  people  of  the  city. 
There  he  sits,  evening  after  evening,  in  the  bosom  of  his  family, 
charming  with  his  wit  and  wisdom  his  delighted  guests. 

The  comparisons  of  the  great  orator  are  so  mirth-provokingthat 
you  break  into  laughter  while  you  are  being  convinced. 

333 


INGERSOLL.  333 

One  night,  when  Ingersoll  was  telling- what  the  Republican  party 
had  done — how  it  had  freed  eight  million  slaves  and  saved  the 
republic,  he  was  interrupted  by  Daniel  Yoorhees,  who  said : 

"  Oh,  bury  the  past,  Colonel ;  talk  about  to-day.  "We  Democrats 
are  not  always  boasting  of  the  past." 

"  I  will  tell  you,"  said  Ingersoll,  "why  the  Democratic  party 
wants  us  to  bury  the  past.  Now  why  should  we  do  so  ?  If  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  had  a  glorious  past,  it  would  not  wish  to  forget  it.  If 
it  were  not  for  the  Republican  party,  there  would  be  no  United 
States  now  on  the  map  of  the  world.  The  Democratic  party  wishes 
to  make  a  bargain  with  us  to  say  nothing  about  the  past  and  noth- 
ing about  character.  It  reminds  me  of  the  contract  that  the 
rooster  proposed  to  make  with  the  horse :  Let  us  agree  not  to  step 
on  each  other's  feet." 

Colonel  Ingersoll  is  a  master  of  ridicule.  Thousands  of  times 
he  has  used  up  a  witness  with  ridicule  and  laughed  him  out  of 
court. 

One  day,  in  Peoria,  they  were  trying  a  patent-churn  case.  The 
opposing  counsel  used  many  scientific  terms.  He  talked  about  the 
science  of  the  mahcine,  and  how  his  client  had  always  been  a  devo- 
tee of  science. 

"  Sir,"  he  said,  "  I  do  not  ask  this  verdict  for  my  client  as  an 
ordinary  man.  I  ask  it  in  the  interest  of  science,  and  because  he 
has  contributed  to  science  a  valuable  discovery." 

"  Science !  "  yelled  the  Colonel ;  "  you  want  this  verdict  for  sci- 
ence. The  burden  of  your  speech  is  for  science.  You  are  deeply 
and  tearfully  concerned  about  science  ;  and  I  see,  gentlemen  of  the 
jury  [looking  over  at  the  opposing  counsel's  brief],  I  see  you  spell 
Science  with  a  '  y,'  sir !  C-y,  cy,  e-n-c-e,  ence,  cyence,  sir." 

Of  course  this  turned  the  laugh  on  the  other  side,  and,  though 
the  Colonel  had  lost  his  case  by  fair  argument,  he  won  it  back 
again  by  the  science  of  ridicule. 

It  is  thus  that  Mr.  Ingersoll  often  answers  the  solid  argument  of 
the  theologian.  If  he  can  not  deny  the  theologian's  statement  or 
answer  his  argument,  he  ridicules  it  and  laughs  it  out  of  court. 

Ingersoll's  estimates  of  public  men  are  often  extremety  amusing. 

In  response  to  an  inquiry  about  Robert  Collyer,  he  said : 

"  Collyer,  the  blacksmith  ?  He  is  a  great  soul.  He  has  a  brain 
full  of  light,  the  head  of  a  philosopher,  the  imagination  of  a  poet 


334  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

and  the  sincere  heart  of  a  child.  Had  such  men  as  Robert  Collyer 
and  John  Stuart  Mill  been  present  at  the  burning  of  Servetus,  they 
would  have  extinguished  the  flames  with  their  tears.  Had  Dr.  Pat- 
ton  and  the  presbytery  of  Chicago  been  there,  they  would  have 
quietly  turned  their  backs,  solemnly  divided  their  coat  tails,  and 
warmed  themselves." 

"  "What  do  you  think  of  Professor  David  Swing  ? "  was  asked. 

"  Professor  Swing,"  said  Ingersoll,  "  is  too  good  a  man  to  have 
stayed  in  the  Presbyterian  church.  There  he  was  a  rose  amongst 
thistles;  he  was  a  dove  amongst  vultures;  and  they  hunted  him 
out,  and  I  am  glad  he  came  out.  I  have  the  greatest  respect  for 
Professor  Swing,  but  I  want  him  to  tell  whether  the  109th  Psalm 
is  inspired." 

Being  questioned  about  superstition,  Ingersoll  said : 

"  Superstition  makes  men  cowards.  'Are  men  restrained  by 
superstition  ? '  you  ask.  Are  men  restrained  by  what  you  call 
religion  ?  I  used  to  think  they  were  not ;  now  I  admit  they  are. 
No  man  has  ever  been  restrained  from  the  commission  of  a  real 
crime,  but  from  an  artificial  one  he  has. 

"  There  was  a  man  who  committed  murder.  They  got  the  evi- 
dence, but  he  confessed  that  he  did  it. 

" l  "What  did  you  do  it  for  ? '  they  asked. 

" (  Money '  said  the  man. 

" '  Did  you  get  any  money  ? ' 

"'Yes.' 

"  *  How  much  ? ' 

"  '  Fifteen  cents.' 

" '  "What  kind  of  a  man  was  he  ? ' 

"  '  A  laboring  man  I  killed.' 

" '  What  did  you  do  with  the  money  V 

"  *  I  bought  liquor  with  it.' 

"  *  Did  he  have  any  thing  else  ? ' 

"  ( I  think  he  had  some  meat  and  bread.' 

"  '  What  did  you  do  with  that  ? ' 

"  £I  ate  the  bread  and  threw  away  the  meat ;  it  was  Friday.' 

"  So  you  see,"  said  Ingersoll,  "  it  will  restrain  in  some  things, 
but,  whoever  is  superstitious  is  not  quite  civilized.  Superstition  is  a 
souvenir  of  the  animal  world.  Fear  is  the  dungeon  of  the  soul. 
Superstition  is  the  dagger  by  which  manhood  is  assassinated.  And 


1NGERSOLL.  335 

as  long  as  anybody  imagines  that  this  world  was  made  for  him,  and 
that  there  is  some  being  who  will  change  the  order  on  his  account, 
that  there  is  some  being  that  will  send  a  famine  because  he  has  not 
prayed  enough,  just  so  long  the  world  will  be  full  of  fear." 

I  have  often  been  amazed  at  the  Colonel's  ingenious  arguments. 
To  illustrate:  He  is  opposed  to  the  enforcement  of  the  old  Connecti- 
cut blue  laws  to  make  people  good.  He  believes  a  man  made  good 
by  law  is  not  really  good  at  heart,  but  is  simply  made  to  appear 
good.  He  is  a  legal  hypocrite. 

One  day  a  fanatical  talker — a  Puritanical  blue-law  man — who 
was  in  favor  of  enforcing  strict  Sunday  laws,  absolute  prohibition, 
etc.,  came  in  on  the  N.  Y.  Central  train.  Mr.  Ingersoll  heard  him 
talk  a  spell,  and  then  asked  him  several  questions  : 

"  "Would  you  like  to  live  in  a  community  where  not  one  cigar 
could  be  smoked  and  not  one  drop  of  spirituous  liquor  could  be  sold 
or  drunk?" 

"  Certainly,"  said  the  blue-law  man ;  "  that  would  be  a  social 

heaven." 

"  And  you  would  like  to  live  where  no  one  could  play  on  the 
Sabbath  day ;  where  no  one  could  laugh  out  loud  and  enjoy  a 
frolic  ? " 

"  Yes  sir  ;  that  would  suit  me.  It  would  be  paradise  to  live  in  a 
community  where  every  one  was  compelled  to  go  to  church  every 
Sunday,  where  no  one  could  drink  a  drop,  where  no  one  could  swear 
and  where  the  law  would  make  every  man  good.  There  the  law 
would  make  every  man's  deportment  absolutely  correct." 

"  Then,"  said  Mr.  Ingersoll,  "  I  advise  you  to  go  right  to  the 
penitentiary.  At  Sing  Sing  there  is  a  community  of  1,500  men  and 
women  governed  in  precisely  that  manner.  They  are  all  good  by 
law." 

It  is  seldom  that  Ingersoll  meets  a  man  who  can  stand  up  against 
his  eloquence  and  wit.  The  great  Agnostic  and  Talmage  met  on  the 
train  the  other  day  just  after  a  famous  Christian  banker  had  defaulted 
and  fled  to  Canada. 

"  That's  the  way  with  you  Christians,"  said  Ingersoll.  "  Here  is 
a  professed  Christian  who  has  been  a  class  leader  and  a  vestryman, 
and  now  the  hypocrite  robs  a  bank  and  away  he  goes  to  Canada." 

"  Did  you  ever  hear  a  Christian  make  an  uproar,  Colonel,  when. 
an  anti-Christian  committed  a  crime — when  he  robbed  a  bank  and 
fled  to  Canada  ? "  asked  Talmage. 


336  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  I  don't  remember  any  such  case  now,"  said  Ingersoll. 

"No,  you  are  not  surprised  when  a  worldly  man  commits  a 
crime.  You  don't  notice  it.  It  is  nothing  unusual.  You  see,"  con- 
tinued Talmage,  "you  expect  us  Christians  to  be  perfect.  You 
expect  us  to  be  as  pure  and  holy  as  our  religion." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Ingersoll. 

"And  when  you  say  '  of  course,'  you  pay  us  a  compliment,  and 
when  you  show  great  surprise  that  one  of  us  should  chance  to  do 
wrong,  you  pay  us  a  still  finer  compliment.  Don't  you  ? " 

Mr.  Ingersoll  was  silent,  and  commenced  winding  his  Waterbury 
watch. 

On  another  occasion  Beecher  got  a  good  joke  on  Ingersoll.  The 
two  were  always  great  friends,  for  two  such  great  hearts  could  not 
keep  apart.  It  seems  that  Mr.  Beecher  had  a  beautiful  globe  in  his 
study,  a  present  from  some  great  manufacturer.  It  was  a  celestial 
globe.  On  it  was  an  excellent  representation  of  the  constellations 
and  stars  which  compose  them.  There  were  the  rings  of  Saturn 
and  satellites  of  Uranus.  Ingersoll  was  delighted  with  the  globe. 
He  examined  it  closely  and  turned  it  round  and  round. 

"  It's  just  what  I  want,"  he  said.     "  Who  made  it  ? " 

"Who  made  it?"  repeated  Beecher,  "Who  made  this  globe?  O? 
nobody,  Colonel,  it  just  happened!" 

Ingersoll  was  so  delighted  at  the  good  point  made  that  he  could 
have  kissed  Beecher  on  the  spot. 

Speaking  of  science  in  theology  and  medicine,  one  day  Mr. 
Ingersoll  said: 

"  All  the  advance  in  religion  ever  made  was  caused  by  the  heretics 
Luther,  John  Huss,  Latimer  and  Wycliffe  and  others  who  kicked 
at  orthodoxy." 

"  What  of  medicine  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Well,  all  the  advance  that  has  been  made  in  the  science  of  medi- 
cine has  been  made  by  the  recklessness  of  patients — medical  here- 
tics. I  can  recollect  when  they  wouldn't  give  a  man  water  in  a 
fever — not  a  drop.  Now  and  then  some  fellow  would  get  so  thirsty 
he  would  say:  '  Well,  I'll  die  anyway,  so  I'll  drink  it,'  and  there- 
upon he  would  drink  a  gallon  of  water,  and  thereupon  he  would 
burst  into  a  generous  perspiration  and  get  well,  and  the  next  morn- 
ing when  the  doctor  would  come  to  see  him  they  would  tell  him 
about  the  man  drinking  the  water,  and  he  would  say:  *  How  much  ? ' 


INGERSOLL.  337 

" '  "Well,  he  swallowed  two  pitchers  full.' 

"'Is  he  alive?' 

"'Yes.' 

"  So  they  would  go  into  the  room  and  the  doctor  would  feel  his 
pulse  and  ask  him: 

"  '  Did  you  drink  two  pitchers  of  water  ? ' 

"'Yes.' 

"  'My  God!  what  a  constitution  you  have  got.' 

"  I  tell  you,"  continued  Ingersoll,  ''there  is  something  splendid  in 
man  that  will  not  always  mind.  Why,  if  we  had  done  as  the  kings 
told  us  five  hundred  years  ago,  we  would  all  have  been  slaves.  If 
we  had  done  as  the  priests  told  us,  we  would  all  have  been  idiots. 
If  we  had  done  as  the  doctors  told  us,  we  would  all  have  been  dead. 
"We  have  been  saved  by  disobedience.  We  have  been  saved  by 
that  splendid  thing  called  independence,  and  I  want  to  see  more  of 
it,  day  after  day,  and  I  want  to  see  children  raised  so  they  will  have 
it.  That  is  my  doctrine.  Give  the  children  a  chance." 

Mr.  Ingersoll  was  complaining,  in  a  humorous  way,  one  day,  on 
the  Alton  train,  about  the  hardships  the  people  have  to  endure  in 
this  world.  "  They  have  cyclones  in  Iowa,"  he  said,  "grasshoppers 
in  Kansas,  famines  in  Ireland,  floods  in  Pennsylvania,  yellow  fever  in 
Galveston,  George  Francis  Train  in  New  York,  and  small  pox  epi- 
demics in  Baltimore.  It  is  very  hard,"  said  Mr.  Ingersoll. 

"  What  does  all  this  prove  ? "  I  asked. 

"  It  proves  that  the  universe  is  not  governed  by  a  personal  God, 
but  by  law — law — law.  There  is  no  personal  God  or  devil.  Such 
ideas  are  only  worthy  of  a  savage.  Huxley,  and  Darwin,  and  Gal- 
ileo would  laugh  at  such  ideas.  If  there  is  a  personal  God  who 
drowned  20,000  people  in  the  Johnstown  flood,  then  He  is  , doing 
very  queer  things.  But  no,  it  was  not  God,  it  was  law.  Foolish 
men  built  a  weak  dam.  By  the  law  of  gravity  the  weight  of  water 
broke  the  dam  and  swept  saints  and  sinners  down  to  death." 

"If  there  were  a  personal  God,  and  you  were  in  his  place,  could 
you  do  these  things  better  than  they  are  being  done  ?  "  asked  Fitz 
Hugh  Lee,  who  happened  to  be  on  the  train  and  sat  listening,  atten- 
tively. 

"  Why,  yes.  I  could  make  some  things  better  than  they  are," 
said  Mr.  Ingersoll. 


338  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Now  what  is  one  thing  that  you  would  change  and  improve  ?" 
asked  Governor  Lee.  "Tell  me  one  thing  that  you  would  make  dif- 
ferent than  it  is  ?  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  with  our  feeble  intellect 
we  could  improve  on  anything  the  Almighty  has  made  ? " 

"  Yes,  certainly  I  could,"  said  Ingersoll,  pushed  to  the  wall. 

"Well,  tell  me  one  single  thing  that  you  could  improve  on." 

"  My  dear  general,"  said  Ingersoll,  "if  I  had  my  way  in  this  world, 
I  would  make  health  catching,  instead  of  disease  catching !  " 


IXGERSOLL'S  GREAT  LECTURE. 

LIBERTY — LOVE — PATRIOTISM. 

Liberty  for  man,  woman,  child,  is  Ingersoll's  great  lecture.  All  of 
his  lectures  would  fill  a  volume.  So  we  make  a  selection  of  his  best 
thoughts. 

INTELLECTUAL  LIBERTY. — I  do  not  know  what  inventions  are  in  the 
brain  of  the  future;  I  do  not  know  what  garments  of  glory  may  be 
woven  for  the  world  in  the  loom  of  years  to  be;  we  are  just  on  the  edge 
of  the  great  ocean  of  discovery.  I  do  not  know  what  is  to  be  discov- 
ered; I  do  not  know  what  science  will  do  for  us.  I  do  not  know  that 
science  did  just  take  a  handful  of  sand  and  make  the  telescope,  and 
with  it  read  all  the  starry  leaves  of  heaven;  I  know  that  science  took 
the  thunderbolts  from  the  hands  of  Jupiter,  and  now  the  electric  spark, 
freighted  with  thought  and  love,  flashes  under  waves  of  the  sea;  I  know 
that  science  stole  a  tear  from  the  cheek  of  unpaid  labor,  converted  it 
into  steam,  and  created  a  giant  that  turns  with  tireless  arms  the  count- 
less wheels  of  toil;  I  know  that  science  broke  the  chains  from  human 
limbs  and  gave  us,  instead,  the  forces  of  nature  for  our  slaves;  I  know 
that  we  have  made  the  attraction  of  gravitation  work  for  us;  we  have 
made  the  lightnings  our  messengers;  we  have  taken  advantage  of  fire 
and  flames  and  wind  and  sea;  these  slaves  have  no  backs  to  be  whipped; 
they  have  no  hearts  to  be  lacerated;  they  have  no  children  to  be  stolen, 
no  craaies  to  be  violated.  I  know  that  science  has  given  us  better 
houses;  I  know  it  has  given  us  better  pictures  and  better  books,  I  know 
it  has  given  us  better  wives  and  better  husbands,  and  more  beautiful 
children.  I  know  it  has  enriched,  a  thousand-fold,  our  lives,  and  for 
that  reason  I  am  in  favor  of  intellectual  liberty. 

KINDNESS. — Above  all,  let  every  man  treat  his  wife  and  children 
with  infinite  kindness.  Give  your  sons  and  daughters  every  advantage 


INQERSOLL.  339 

within  your  power.  In  the  air  of  kindness  they  will  grow  about  you 
like  flowers.  They  will  fill  your  homes  with  sunshine  and  all  your  years 
with  joy.  Do  not  try  to  rule  by  force. 

A  blow  from  a  parent  leaves  a  scar  on  the  soul.  [Applause.]  I 
should  feel  ashamed  to  die  surrounded  by  children  I  had  whipped. 
Think  of  feeling  upon  your  dying  lips  the  kiss  of  a  child  you  had 
struck. 

See  to  it  that  your  wife  has  every  convenience.  Make  her  life  worth 
living.  Never  allow  her  to  become  a  servant.  Wives,  weary  and  worn; 
mothers,  wrinkled  and  bent  before  their  time,  fill  homes  with  grief  and 
shame.  If  you  are  not  able  to  hire  help  for  your  wives,  help  them  your- 
selves. See  that  they  have  the  best  utensils  to  work  with.  Women  can 
not  create  things  by  magic.  Have  plenty  of  wood  and  coal — good  cel- 
lars and  plenty  in  them. 

A  STRONG  GOVERNMENT. — I  believe  in  a  government  with  an  arm 
long  enough  to  reach  the  collar  of  any  rascal  beneath  its  flag.  I  want 
it  with  an  arm  long  enough  and  a  sword  sharp  enough  to  strike  down 
tyranny  wherever  it  may  raise  its  snaky  head.  I  want  a  nation  that 
can  hear  the  faintest  cries  of  its  humblest  citizen.  I  want  a  nation 
that  will  protect  a  freedman  standing  in  the  sun  by  his  little  cabin,  just 
as  quick  as  it  would  protect  Vanderbilt  in  a  palace  of  marble  and  gold. 
[Applause.] 

AMERICAN"  LABOR. — I  believe  in  American  labor,  and  I  tell  you  why. 
The  other  day  a  man  told  me  that  we  had  produced  in  the  United  States 
of  America  one  million  tons  of  rails.  How  much  are  they  worth?  Thirty 
dollars  a  ton.  In  other  words,  the  million  tons  are  worth  $30,000,000. 
How  much  is  a  ton  of  iron  worth  in  the  ground?  Twenty-five  cents. 
American  labor  takes  25  cents  of  iron  in  the  ground  and  adds  to  it  $29.- 
75.  One  million  tons  of  rails,  and  the  raw  material  not  worth  $20,000. 
We  build  a  ship  in  the  United  States  worth  $500,000,  and  the  value  of 
the  ore  in  the  earth,  of  the  trees  in  the  great  forest,  of  all  that  enters 
into  the  composition  of  that  ship  bringing  $500,000  in  gold  is  only  $20,- 
000;  $480,000  by  American  labor,  American  muscle,  coined  into  gold. 

AMERICA  FOREVER  ! — I  have  been  in  countries  where  the  laboring 
man  had  meat  once  a  year;  sometimes  twice — Christmas  and  Easter. 
And  I  have  seen  women  carrying  upon  their  heads  a  burden  that  no  man 
would  like  to  carry,  and  at  the  same  time  knitting  busily  with  both  hands. 
And  those  women  lived  without  meat;  and  when  I  thought  of  the  Ameri- 
can laborer,  I  said  to  myself,  " After  all,  my  country  is  the  best  in  the 
world."  And  when  I  came  back  to  the  sea  and  saw  the  old  flag  flying  in 

22 


340  KOTOS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

the  air,  it  seemed  to  me  as  though  the  air  from  pure  joy  had  burst  into 
blossom. 

Labor  has  more  to  eat  and  more  to  wear  in  the  United  States  than  in 
any  other  land  of  this  earth.  I  want  America  to  produce  every  thing 
that  Americans  need.  I  want  it  so  if  the  whole  world  should  declare 
war  against  us,  so  if  we  were  surrounded  by  walls  of  cannon  and  bay- 
onets and  swords,  we  could  supply  all  human  wants  in  and  of  ourselves. 
I  want  to  live  to  see  the  American  woman  dressed  in  American  silk;  the 
American  man  in  every  thing  from  hat  to  boots  produced  in  America  by 
the  cunning  hand  of  the  American  toiler. 

RELIGION"  AND  SCIENCE. — What  has  religion  to  do  with  science  or 
with  facts?  Nothing.  Is  there  any  such  thing  as  Methodist  mathemat- 
ics, Presbyterian  botany,  Catholic  astronomy  or  Baptist  biology  ?  What 
has  any  form  of  superstition  or  religion  to  do  with  a  fact  or  with  any 
science?  Nothing  but  hinder,  delay  or  embarrass.  I  want,  then,  to  free 
the  schools;  and  I  want  to  free  the  politicians,  so  that  a  man  will  not 
have  to  pretend  he  is  a  Methodist,  or  his  wife  a  Baptist,  or  his  grand- 
mother a  Catholic,  so  that  he  can  go  through  a  campaign,  and  when  he 
gets  through  will  find  none  of  the  dust  of  hypocrisy  on  his  knees. 

CHEIST. — And  let  me  say  here,  once  for  all,  that  for  the  man  Christ 
I  have  infinite  respect.  Let  me  say,  once  for  all,  that  the  place  where 
man  has  died  for  man  is  holy  ground.  Let  me  say  once  for  all,  to  that 
great  and  serene  man  I  gladly  pay — I  gladly  pay  the  tribute  of  my 
admiration  and  my  tears.  He  was  a  reformer  in  His  day.  He  was  an  infi- 
del in  His  time.  He  was  regarded  as  a  blasphemer,  and  His  life  was 
destroyed  by  hypocrites  who  have  in  all  ages  done  what  they  could  to 
trample  freedom  out  of  the  human  mind.  Had  I  lived  at  that  time  I 
would  have  been  His  friend.  And  should  He  come  again  He  will  not 
find  a  better  friend  than  I  will  be.  That  is  for  the  man.  For  the  theo 
logical  creation  I  have  a  different  feeling.  If  he  was  in  fact  God,  He 
knew  there  was  no  such  thing  as  death;  He  knew  that  what  we  call  death 
was  but  the  eternal  opening  of  the  golden  gates  of  everlasting  joy.  And 
it  took  no  heroism  to  face  a  death  that  was  simply  eternal  life.  [Applause.] 


INGERSOLL'S  ELOQUENT  VISION. 

The  following  remarkably  eloquent  words  are  taken  from  Col- 
onel Insrersoll's  brilliant  address  to   the  veteran  soldiers  at  Indian- 

O 

apolis : 

The  past,  as  it  were,  rises  before  me  like  a  dream.     Again  we  are  in  the  great 
struggle  for  national  life.     We  hear  the  sound  of  preparation — the  music  of  the 


INGERSOLL.  341 

boisterous  drums  —  the  silver  voices  of  the  heraldic  bugles.  We  see  thousands  of 
assemblages,  and  hear  the  appeals  of  orators ;  we  see  the  pale  cheeks  of  women,  and 
the  flushed  faces  of  men;  and  in  those  assemblages  we  see  all  the  dead  whose  dust  we 
have  covered  with  flowers.  We  lose  sight  of  them  no  more.  We  are  with  them  when 
they  enlist  in  the  great  army  of  freedom.  We  see  them  part  with  those  they  love. 
Some  are  walking  for  the  last  time  in  quiet  woody  places  with  the  maidens  they 
adore.  We  hear  the  whisperings  and  the  sweet  vows  of  eternal  love  as  they  linger- 
ingly  part  forever.  Others  are  bending  over  cradles  kissing  babies  that  are  asleep. 
Some  are  receiving  the  blessings  of  old  men.  Some  are  parting  with  mothers  who 
hold  them  and  press  them  to  their  hearts  again  and  again,  and  say  nothing  ;  and  some 
are  talking  with  wives  and  endeavoring  with  brave  words  spoken  in  the  old  tones  to 
drive  away  the  awful  fear.  We  see  them  part.  We  see  the  wife  standing  in  the 
door  with  the  babe  in  her  arms — standing  in  the  sunlight  sobbing — at  the  turn  of  the 
road  a  hand  waves — she  answers  by  holding  high  in  her  loving  hands  the  child.  He 
is  gone,  and  forever. 

We  see  them  all,  as  they  march  proudly  away  under  the  flaunting  flags,  keeping 
time  to  the  wild  grand  music  of  war — marching  down  the  streets  of  the  great  cities — 
through  the  towns  and  across  the  prairies — down  to  the  fields  of  glory,  to  do  and  to 
die  for  the  eternal  right.  [Applause.] 

We  go  with  them  one  and  all.  We  are  by  their  side  on  all  the  gory  fields,  in  all 
the  hospitals  of  pain — on  all  the  weary  marches.  We  stand  guard  with  them  in  the 
wild  storm  and  under  the  quiet  stars.  We  are  with  them  in  ravines  running  with 
blood — in  the  furrows  of  old  fields.  We  are  with  them  between  contending  hosts, 
unable  to  move,  wild  with  thirst,  the  life  ebbing  slowly  away  among  the  withered 
leaves.  We  see  them  pierced  by  balls  and  torn  with  shells  in  the  trenches  of  forts, 
and  in  the  whirlwind  of  the  charge,  where  men  become  iron  with  nerves  of  steel. 

We  are  with  them  in  the  prisons  of  hatred  and  famine,  but  human  speech  can 
never  tell  what  they  endured. 

We  are  at  home  when  the  news  comes  that  they  are  dead.  We  see  the  maiden  in 
the  shadow  of  her  sorrow.  We  see  the  silvered  head  of  the  old  man  bowed  with  the 
last  grief. 

The  past  rises  before  us,  and  we  see  four  millions  of  human  beings  governed  by 
the  lash — we  see  them  bound  hand  and  foot — we  hear  the  strokes  of  cruel  whips — 
we  see  hounds  tracking  women  through  tangled  swamps.  We  see  babes  sold  from  the 
breasts  of  mothers.  Cruelty  unspeakable!  Outrage  infinite ! 

Four  million  bodies  in  chains — four  million  souls  in  fetters.  All  the  sacred 
relations  of  wife,  mother,  father  and  child,  trampled  beneath  the  brutal  feet  of  might. 
And  all  this  was  done  under  our  own  beautiful  banner  of  the  free. 

The  past  rises  before  us.  We  hear  the  roar  and  shriek  of  the  bursting  shell. 
The  broken  fetters  fall.  There  heroes  died.  We  look.  Instead  of  slaves  we  see 
men  and  women  and  children.  The  wand  of  progress  touches  the  auction-block,  the 
slave-pen  and  the  whipping-post,  and  we  see  homes  and  firesides  and  school-houses 
and  books,  and  where  all  was  want  and  crime  and  cruelty  and  fear,  we  see  the  faces 
of  the  free. 

These  heroes  are  dead.  They  died  for  liberty — they  died  for  us.  They  are  at  rest. 
They  sleep  in  the  land  they  made  free,  under  the  flag  they  rendered  stainless,  under 
the  solemn  pines,  the  sad  hemlocks,  the  tearful  willows,  the  embracing  vines.  They 
sleep  beneath  the  shadows  of  the  clouds,  careless  alike  of  sunshine  or  storm,  each  in 


342  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

the  windowless  palace  of  rest.  Earth  may  run  red  with  other  wars — they  are  at 
peace.  In  the  midst  of  battle,  in  the  roar  of  conflict,  they  found  the  serenity  of  death. 
I  have  one  sentiment  for  the  soldiers  living  and  dead — cheers  for  the  living  and  tears 
for  the  dead.  [Applause.] 


INGEKSOLL  ON  CHILDKEN. 

"  How  should  you  treat  your  children?"  you  ask. 

"  Why,  be  perfectly  honor-bright  with  your  children,"  said  Inger- 
soll,  "and  they  will  be  your  friends  when  you  are  old.  Don't  try  to 
teach  them  something  they  can  never  learn.  Don't  insist  upon  their  pur- 
suing some  calling  they  have  no  sort  of  faculty  for.  Don't  make  that 
poor  girl  play  ten  years  on  a  piano  when  she  has  no  ear  for  music,  and 
when  she  has  practiced  until  she  can  play  '  Bonaparte  Crossing  the 
Alps,'  you  can't  tell  after  she  has  played  it  whether  Bonaparte  ever  got 
across  or  not.  Men  are  oaks,  women  are  vines,  children  are  flowers, 
and  if  there  is  any  heaven  in  this  world,  it  is  in  the  family.  It  is  where 
the  wife  loves  the  husband,  and  the  husband  loves  the  wife,  and  where 
the  dimpled  arms  of  children  are  about  the  necks  of  both." 

Speaking  of  children,  Ingersoll  used  these  burning  words  that  same 
night  in  his  Chicago  lecture: 

If  there  is  one-  of  you  here  that  ever  expect  to  whip  your  child  again,  let  me  ask 
you  something.  Have  your  photograph  taken  at  the  time,  and  let  it  show  your  face 
red  with  vulgar  anger,  and  the  face  of  the  little  one  with  eyes  swimming  in  tears, 
and  the  little  chin  dimpled  with  fear,  looking  like  a  piece  of  water  struck  by  a  sud- 
den cold  wind.  If  that  little  child  should  die,  I  can  not  think  of  a  sweeter  way  to 
spend  an  autumn  afternoon  than  to  take  that  photograph  and  go  to  the  cemetery, 
when  the  maples  are  clad  in  tender  gold,  and  when  little  scarlet  runners  are  coming, 
like  poems  of  regret,  from  the  sad  heart  of  the  earth;  and  sit  down  upon  that  mound, 
and  look  upon  that  photograph,  and  think  of  the  flesh,  now  dust,  that  you  beat. 
Just  think  of  it.  I  could  not  bear  to  die  in  the  arms  of  a  child  that  I  had  whipped. 
I  could  not  bear  to  feel  upon  my  lips,  when  they  were  withered  beneath  the  touch  of 
death,  the  kiss  of  one  that  I  had  struck.  [Applause.] 

I  said,  and  T  say  again,  no  day  can  be  so  sacred  but  that  the  laugh  of  a  child  will 
make  the  holiest  day  more  sacred  still.  Strike  with  hand  of  fire,  oh,  weird  musician, 
thy  harp,  strung  with  Apollo's  golden  hair;  fill  the  vast  cathedral  aisles  with 
symphonies  sweet  and  dim,  deft  toucher  of  the  organ  keys;  blow,  bugler  blow, 
until  thy  silver  notes  do  touch  the  skies,  with  moonlit  waves,  and  charm  the  lovers 
wandering  on  the  vine-clad  hills;  but  know,  your  sweetest  strains  are  discords  all, 
compared  with  childhood's  happy  laugh,  the  laugh  that  fills  the  eyes  with  light  and 
every  heart  with  joy;  oh,  rippling  river  of  life,  thou  art  the  blessed  boundary  line 
between  the  beasts  and  man,  and  every  wayward  wave  of  thine  doth  drown  some 
fiend  of  care;  oh,  laughter,  divine  daughter  of  joy,  make  dimples  enough  in  the 
cheeks  of  the  world  to  catch  and  hold  and  glorify  all  the  tears  of  grief.  [Loud 
applause.] 


WHY,  GRANDMA,  YOU  CAN'T! 


See  page  318. 


INQERSOLL.  343 

I  like  to  hear  children  at  the  table  telling  what  big  things  they  have  seen  during 
the  day;  I  like  to  hear  their  merry  voices  mingling  with  the  clatter  of  knives  and 
forks.  I  had  rather  hear  that  than  any  opera  that  was  ever  put  upon  the  stage.  I 
hate  this  idea  of  authority.  I  hate  dignity.  I  never  saw  a  dignified  man  that  was 
not,  after  all,  an  old  idiot.  [Laughter.]  Dignity  is  a  mask;  a  dignified  man  is 
afraid  that  you  will  know  he  does  not  know  every  thing.  A  man  of  sense  and  argu- 
ment is  always  willing  to  admit  what  he  don't  know.  "Why?  Because  there  is  so 
much  that  he  does  know;  and  that  is  the  first  step  towards  learning  any  thing. 

Willingness  to  admit  what  you  don't  know,  and  when  you  don't  understand  a 
thing — ask,  no  matter  how  small  and  silly  it  may  look  to  other  people — ask,  and, 
after  that  you  know.  A  man  never  is  in  a  state  of  mind  that  he  can  learn  until  he 
gets  that  dignified  nonsense  out  of  him,  and  so,  I  say,  let  us  treat  our  children  with 
perfect  kindness  and  tenderness. 

I  want  to  tell  you  that  you  can  not  get  the  robe  of  hypocrisy  on  you  so  thick 
that  the  sharp  eye  of  childhood  will  not  see  through  every  veil,  and  if  you  pretend  to 
your  children  that  you  are  the  best  man  that  ever  lived — the  bravest  man  that  ever 
lived — they  will  find  you  out  every  time.  They  will  not  have  the  same  opinion  of 
father  when  they  grow  up  that  they  used  to  have.  They  will  have  to  be  in  mighty 
bad  luck  if  they  ever  do  meaner  things  than  you  have  done.  When  your  child  con- 
fesses to  you  that  it  has  committed  a  fault,  take  that  child  in  your  arms,  and  let  it 
feel  your  heart  beat  against  its  heart,  and  raise  your  children  in  the  sunlight  of  love, 
and  they  will  be  sunbeams  to  you  along  the  pathway  of  life.  Abolish  the  club  and 
the  whip  from  the  house,  because,  if  the  civilized  use  a  whip,  the  ignorant  and  the 
brutal  will  use  a  club,  and  they  will  use  it  because  you  use  the  whip. 

A  good  way  to  make  a  child  tell  the  truth  is  to  tell  it  yourself.  Keep  your  word 
with  your  child  the  same  as  you  would  with  your  banker.  [Applause.] 

Another  thing:  Let  the  children  eat  what  they  want  to.  Let  them  commence  at 
whichever  end  of  the  dinner  they  desire.  That  is  my  doctrine.  They  know  what 
they  want  much  better  than  you  do.  Nature  is  a  great  deal  smarter  than  you  ever 
were. 

Every  little  while  some  door  is  thrown  open  in  some  orphan  asylum,  and  there 
we  see  the  bleeding  back  of  a  child  whipped  beneath  the  roof  that  was  raised  by  love. 
It  is  infamous,  and  the  man  that  can't  raise  a  child  without  the  whip  ought  not  to 
have  a  child. 

Don't  plant  your  children  in  long,  straight  rows,  like  posts.  Let  them  have 
light  and  air,  and  let  them  grow  beautiful  as  palms.  When  I  was  a  little  boy, 
children  went  to  bed  when  they  were  not  sleepy,  and  always  got  up  when  they  were.. 
I  would  like  to  see  that  changed,  but  they  say  we  are  too  poor,  some  of  us,  to  do  it 

Well,  all  right.  It  is  as  easy  to  wake  a  child  with  a  kiss  as  with  a  blow;  with 
kindness  as  with  a  curse. 

Don't  always  be  saying  to  the  children,  "don't."  You  are  curbing  nature. 
Many  children  hear  no  other  word  but  "  don't "  from  babyhood  to  twenty  years. 

Eli  Perkins  tells  how  a  dear,  old  "  don't"  grandma  came  to  the  top  of  the  stairs 
and  exclaimed,  "Don't,  boys;  don't — don't  slide  down  those  banisters.  I  wouldn't 
doit!" 

"  Why,  Grandma,  you  can't,"  said  little  logical  Charley,  as  he  picked  himself  up 
from  the  hall  floor.  [Laughter.] 

If  the  old  lady  could  have  slid  down  the  banisters  as  graceful  as  Charley  did,  I'll 
bet  banister-sliding  would  have  taken  the  place  of  the  sewing  society. 


344  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

I  was  over  In  Michigan  the  other  day.  There  was  a  boy  over  there  at  Grand 
Rapids  about  five  or  six  years  old,  a  nice,  smart  boy,  as  you  will  see  from  the  remark 
he  made — what  you  might  call  a  nineteenth  century  boy.  His  father  and  mother 
had  promised  to  take  him  out  riding.  They  had  promised  to  take  him  out  riding  for 
about  three  weeks,  and  they  would  slip  off  and  go  without  him.  Well,  after  a  while 
that  got  kind  of  played  out  with  the  little  boy,  and  the  day  before  I  was  there  they 
played  the  trick  on  him  again.  They  went  out  and  got  the  carriage,  and  went  away, 
and  as  they  rode  away  from  the  front  of  the  house,  he  happened  to  be  standing  there 
with  his  nurse,  and  he  saw  them.  The  whole  thing  flashed  on  him  in  a  moment.  He 
took  in  the  situation,  turned  to  his  nurse  and  said,  pointing  to  his  father  and  mother: 
"  There  goes  the  two  biggest  liars  in  the  State  of  Michigan ! "  [Laughter.] 
When  you  go  home  fill  the  house  with  joy,  so  that  the  light  of  it  will  stream  out 
the  windows  and  doors,  and  illuminate  even  the  darkness.  [Applause.] 


INGERSOLL  ON  WOMAN. 

"  But  what  do  you  think  about  woman?  "  was  asked  the  colonel. 

"Ah,  there/'  he  exclaimed,  "you  touch  my  heart." 

"  I  don't  believe  man  ever  came  to  any  high  station  without  woman. 
There  has  got  to  be  some  restraint,  something  to  make  you  prudent, 
something  to  make  you  industrious.  And  in  a  country  like  Santo 
Domingo,  where  you  don't  need  any  bed-quilt  but  a  cloud,  [laughter] 
revolution  is  the  normal  condition  of  the  people.  You  have  got  to  have 
the  fireside;  you  have  got  to  have  the  home,  the  wife,  and  there  by  the 
fireside  will  grow  and  bloom  the  fruits  of  the  human  race.  I  recollect 
a  while  ago  I  was  in  Washington  when  they  were  trying  to  annex  Santo 
Domingo.  They  said:  'We  want  to  take  in  Santo  Domingo.' 

"  '  We  don't  want  it,'  said  I. 

"'  Why/  said  they,  'it  is  the  best  climate  the  earth  can  produce. 
There  is  every  thing  you  want/ 

'"Yes/  said  I,  'but  it  won't  produce  men,  only  women.  We  don't 
want  it.  "We  have  got  soil  good  enough  now.' 

'"Take  5,000  ministers  from  New  England,  5,000  presidents  of  col- 
leges, and  5,000  solid  business  men  and  their  families,  and  take  them  to 
Santo  Domingo,  and  then  you  will  see  the  effect  of  climate.  The  second 
generation  you  will  see  barefooted  boys  riding  bareback  on  a  mule,  with 
their  hair  sticking  out  of  the  top  of  their  sombreros,  with  a  rooster 
under  each  arm  going  to  a  cock-fight  on  Sunday/  [Laughter.] 

"You  have  got  to  have  the  soil;  you  have  got  to  have  the  climate, 
and  you  have  got  to  have  another  thing — you  have  got  to  have  the  fire- 
side, and  you  have  got  to  have  woman. 

"It  is  not  necessary  to  be  great  to  be  happy;  it  is  not  necessary  to 
be  rich  to  be  just  and  generous  and  to  have  a  heart  filled  with  divine 


INGERSOLL.  345 

affection.  No  matter  whether  you  are  rich  or  poor,  use  your  wife  as 
though  she  were  a  splendid  creation,  and  woman  will  fill  your  life  with 
perfume  and  joy.  And  do  you  know  it  is  a  splendid  thing  for  me  to 
think  that  the  woman  you  really  love  will  never  grow  old  to  you. 
Through  the  wrinkles  of  time,  through  the  music  of  years,  if  you  really 
love  her,  you  will  always  see  the  face  you  loved  and  won.  And  a  woman 
who  really  loves  a  man  does  not  see  that  he  grows  older;  he  is  not 
decrepit;  he  does  not  tremble;  he  is  not  old;  she  always  sees  the  same 
gallant  gentleman  who  won  her  hand  and  heart.  I  like  to  think  of  it 
in  that  way;  I  like  to  think  of  all  passions,  love  is  eternal,  and  as  Shakes- 
peare says,  '  Although  time  with  his  sickle  can  rob  ruby  lips  and  spark- 
ling eyes,  let  him  reach  as  far  as  he  can,  he  can  not  quite  touch  love, 
that  reaches  even  to  the  end  of  the  tomb.'  And  to  love  in  that  way 
and  then  go  down  the  hill  of  life  together,  and  as  you  go  down,  hear, 
perhaps,  the  laughter  of  grandchildren,  and  the  birds  of  joy  and  love 
will  sing  once  more  in  the  leafless  branches  of  age.  I  believe  in  the  fire- 
side. I  believe  in  the  democracy  of  home.  I  believe  in  the  republican- 
ism of  the  family.  I  believe  in  liberty  and  equality  with  those  we  love. 

"I  despise. a  stingy  man.  I  don't  see  how  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to 
die  worth  fifty  millions  of  dollars  or  ten  millions  of  dollars,  in  a  city  full 
of  want,  when  he  meets  almost  every  day  the  withered  hand  of  beggary 
and  the  white  lips  of  famine.  How  a  man  can  withstand  all  that,  and 
hold  in  the  clutch  of  his  greed  twenty  or  thirty  millions  of  dollars,  is 
past  my  comprehension.  I  do  not  see  how  he  can  do  it.  I  should  not 
think  he  could  do  it  any  more  than  he  could  keep  a  pile  of  lumber 
where  hundreds  and  thousands  of  men  were  drowning  in  the  sea.  I 
should  not  think  he  could  do  it.  Do  you  know  I  have  known  men  who 
would  trust  their  wives  with  their  hearts  and  their  honor,  but  not  with 
their  pocketbook;  not  with  a  dollar.  When  I  see  a  man  of  that  kind  I 
always  think  he  knows  which  of  these  articles  is  the  most  valuable. 

''Think  of  making  your  wife  a  beggar  !  Think  of  her  having  to 
ask  you  every  day  for  a  dollar,  or  for  two  dollars,  for  fifty  cents! 
'What  did  you  do  with  that  dollar  I  gave  you  last  week?' 

"Think  of  having  a  wife  that  was  afraid  of  you!  What  kind  of 
children  do  yon  expect  to  have  with  a  beggar  and  a  coward  for  their 
mother?  Oh!  I  tell  you  if  you  have  but  a  dollar  in  the  world  and  you 
have  got  to  spend  it,  spend  it  like  a  king ;  spend  it  as  though  it  were  a 
dry  leaf  and  you  the  owner  of  unbounded  forests!  That's  the  way  to 
spend  it! 

"  I  had  rather  be  a  beggar  and  spend  my  last  dollar  like  ,-.v  king,  than 
be  a  king  and  spend  my  money  like  a  beggar.  If  it's  got  to  go,  let  it 


"346  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

•go.  Get  the  best  you  can  for  your  family — try  to  look  as  well  as  you 
•can  yourself. 

"When  you  used  to  go  courting,  how  nice  you  looked!  Ah,  your 
eye  was  bright,  your  step  was  light,  and  you  just  put  on  the  very  best 
look  you  could.  Do  you  know  that  it  is  insufferable  egotism  in  you  to 
.suppose  that  a  woman  is  going  to  love  you  always  looking  as  bad  as  you 
can?  Think  of  it!  Any  woman  on  earth  will  be  true  to  you  forever 
when  you  do  your  level  best.  Some  people  tell  me,  'your  doctrine  about 
loving  and  wives  and  all  that  is  splendid  for  the  rich,  but  it  won't  do 
for  the  poor/  I  tell  you  to-night  there  is  on  the  average  more  love  in 
the  homes  of  the  poor  than  in  the  palaces  of  the  rich  ;  and  the  meanest 
hut  with  love  in  it  is  fit  for  the  gods,  and  a  palace  without  love  is  a  den, 
•only  fit  for  wild  beasts.  That's  my  doctrine!  You  can't  be  so  poor 
but  that  you  can  help  somebody. 

"  Good  nature  is  the  cheapest  commodity  in  the  world;  and  love  is 
the  only  thing  that  will  pay  ten  per  cent,  to  borrower  and  lender  both. 
Don't  tell  me  that  you  have  got  to  be  rich!  "We  have  all  a  false  standard 
of  greatness  in  the  United  States.  We  think  here  that  a  man  to  be 
great  must  be  notorious;  he  must  be  extremely  wealthy,  or  his  name 
must  be  between  the  lips  of  rumor.  It  is  all  nonsense! 

"  It  is  not  necessary  to  be  rich  to  be  great,  or  to  be  powerful  to  be 
happy;  and  the  happy  man  is  the  successful  man.  Happiness  is  the 
legal-tender  of  the  soul.  Joy  and  love  are  wealth." 


"MARK  TWAIN; 


BIOGRAPHY  AND   REMINISCENCES. 

Samuel  L.  Clemens  (Mark  Twain),  who  has  done  so  much  to  make  our  lives 
sunny,  was  born  in  Hannibal,  Mo.,  in  1835.  From  his  brother's  printing  office  he 
went  on  the  Mississippi  river  as  a  pilot.  It  was  hearing  the  cry  of  the  soundings  "Mark 
one!  Mark  twain!  Mark  three!"  that  caused  him  to  take  his  pseudonym,  "Mark 
Twain."  From  the  river  Mr.  Clemens  went  to  Nevada,  and  entered  journalism.  He 
afterwards  removed  to  San  Francisco  and  thence  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and,  return- 
ing, gave  his  first  lecture,  "Roughing  It."  After  traveling  in  Europe,  he  wrote 
"Innocents  Abroad."  This  book  made  him  famous,  and  was  quickly  followed  by 
"  Tom  Sawyer,"  "The  Prince  and  the  Pauper,"  and  other  sketches.  On  returning 
from  the  Holy  Land,  he  became  editor  of  the  Buffalo  Express,  but  finally  moved  to 
Hartford,  Conn.,  where  he  now  lives  in  a  beautiful  home,  surrounded  by  a  lovely 
family  of  children.  Mrs.  Clemens,  formerly  Miss  Langdon,  of  Elmira,  N.  Y.,  is 
beloved  by  every  one  in  Hartford. 

To  show  the  humorist's  characteristic  handwriting,  his  preface 
from  his  "  Library  of  "Wit  and  Humor,"  is  reproduced : 


tU^-JUu^  isf~f-0~te-t&  ij 


^<>^  ^-^-«U^^Xc/ 


vLL*~rftl    Mx-a^ 


fte^Jfi 


•P 


348 


MARK  TWAIN.  349 

Mr.  David  Welcher  tells  me  that  Mark  Twain  when  in  a  good 
humor,  told  him  the  story  of  his  courtship,  and  .how  he  won  his 
beautiful  and  wealthy  wife.  "When  Mark  first  met  her,  he  was  not  so 
distinguished  as  now ;  his  origin  was  humble,  and  for  some  years  of 
his  life  he  had  been  a  pilot  on  the  Mississippi  river.  The  future 
Mrs.  Clemens  was  a  woman  of  position  and  fortune;  her  father 
was  a  judge,  and  doubtless  expected  "family"  and  social  importance 
in  his  son-in-law.  Clemens,  however,  became  interested  in  his 
daughter,  and  after  awhile  proposed,  but  was  rejected. 

"  Well,"  he  said  to  the  lady,  "  I  didn't  much  believe  you'd  have 
me,  but  I  thought  I'd  try." 

After  a  while  he  "  tried  "  again,  with  the  same  result,  and  then 
remarked,  with  his  celebrated  drawl,  "  I  think  a  great  deal  more  of 
you  than  if  you'd  said  '  Yes,'  but  it's  hard  to  bear."  A  third  time 
he  met  with  better  fortune  and  then  came  to  the  most  difficult  part 
of  his  task — to  address  the  old  gentleman. 

"Judge,"  he  said  to  the  dignified  millionaire,  "have  you  seen 
any  thing  going  on  between  Miss  Lizzie  and  me  ? " 

"  What  ?  What  ? v  exclaimed  the  judge,  rather  sharply,  appar- 
ently not  understanding  the  situation,  yet  doubtless  getting  a 
glimpse  of  it  from  the  inquiry. 

"  Have  you  seen  any  thing  going  on  between  Miss  Lizzie  and  me?  " 

"No,  indeed,"  replied  the  magnate,  sternly.  "No,  sir,  I  have 
not?" 

"  Well,  look  sharp  and  you  will,"  said  the  author  of  "  Innocents 
Abroad,"  and  that's  the  way  he  asked  the  judicial  luminary  for 
his  daughter's  hand. 

Mark  has  a  child  who  inherits  some  of  her  father's  brightness. 
She  kept  a  diary  at  one  time,  in  which  she  noted  the  occurrences  in 
the  family,  and,  among  other  things,  the  sayings  of  her  parents. 
On  one  page  she  wrote  that  father  sometimes  used  stronger  words 
when  mother  wasn't  by,  and  he  thought  "  we  "  didn't  hear.  Mrs. 
Clemens  found  the  diary  and  showed  it  to  her  husband,  probably 
thinking  the  particular  page  worthy  his  notice.  After  this  Clemens 
did  and  said  several  things  that  were  intended  to  attract  tne  child's 
attention,  and  found  them  duly  noted  afterward.  But  one  day  the 
following  entry  was  made : 

"I  don't  think  I'll  put  down  any  thing  more  about  father,  for  I 
think  he  does  things  to  have  me  notice  him,  and  I  believe  he  reads 
this  diary."  She  was  Mark's  own  child. 


350  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"When  I  asked  K.  E.  Morris,  of  Hannibal,  who  went  to  school 
with  Mark  when  he  was  a  boy,  about  the  great  humorist's  boyhood, 
he  said,  as  he  stopped  his  painting  at  520  South  Fourth  street : 

"  Know  Mark  ?    I  should  say  I  do.    We  were  school-mates." 

"  Sprightly  boy,  you  say." 

"  Yes,  he  was.  He  was  a  mischievous  rascal.  I  was  born  and 
raised  in  Hannibal,  and  know  when  Mrs.  Clemens  moved  from 
Florida,  Monroe  County,  to  Hannibal.  Mark  was  a  dull,  stupid, 
slow-going  boy.  but  he  was  full  of  pranks,  and  while  he  didn't  do  the 
meanness,  he  planned  it  and  got  other  boys  to  do  it.  We  went  to 
school  to  Dr.  Meredith,  and  Mark  always  sat  near  the  foot  of  the 
class.  He  never  took  any  interest  in  books,  and  I  never  saw  him 
study  his  lessons.  He  left  school  and  went  to  learn  the  printing 
business,  and  soon  after  that  left  Hannibal  and  went  to  steam- 
boating. 

"I  stayed  at  school,  got  a  good  education,  and  am  a  painter, 
while  Mark  is  a  millionaire.  It  is  a  scandalous  fact,  that  as  a  boy, 
from  ten  to  seventeen  years  of  age,  Mark  was  awfully  dull  and 
stupid,  and  it  was  the  wonder  of  the  town,  as  to  what  end  would  be 
his.  He  was  pointed  out  by  mothers,  as  a  boy  that  would  never 
amount  to  nothin',  if  he  did  not  actually  come  to  some  bad  end. 
And  he  was  the  most  homely  boy  in  school,  too.  Pranks !  I  can 
think  of  a  dozen  of  'em,  and  his  Huckleberry  Finn  is  full  of  Hanni- 
bal episodes,  worked  over.  I  read  that  with  as  much  interest  as  I 
would  a  diary  of  Hannibal,  kept  during  my  school  days.  Mark  is 
three  years  older  than  myself,  but  he  was  al \vays  in  a  class  of  boys 
two  or  three  j^ears  younger  than  himself.  Still  I'm  painting  houses 
and  Mark  is  dining  with  kings.  Don't  get  your  trousers  agin  the 
pain't.' 

Mark  Twain  will  go  down  to  posterity  as  the  Dickens  of 
America.  He  shows  a  more  vivid  imagination  than  Dickens,  be- 
cause his  early  associations  were  in  a  wilder,  newer  and  more  pic- 
turesque country.  Dickens  was  a  pure  humorist.  He  described 
nature  as  it  was.  He  added  nothing  to  it.  Mark  Twain  describes 
nature  and  character  as  truthfully  as  Dickens,  and  then,  sometimes, 
peppers  his  truthful  description  with  imagination.  This  is  wit. 
Dickens'  "Little  Nell,"  and  "Smike"  and  "Oliver  Twist"  and 
"  Fagin  "  are  drawn  true  to  life — dialect  and  all. 


MARE  TWAIN.  351 

Mr.  Clemens'  writings,  like  "Houghing  It,"  will  always  illustrate 
our  exaggerated  early  American  life.  His  reputation  as  a  literary 
man  will  go  down  in  history,  Boston  critics  to  the  contrary. 

The  quaint  humor  of  Mr.  Clemens,  shows  itself  in  his  every-day 
life.  To  illustrate  :  At  a  recent  dinner  in  Boston,  there  was  a  long 
religious  discussion  on  eternal  life  and  future  punishment  for  the 
wicked ;  but  Mark  Twain,  who  was  present,  took  no  part  in  the  dis- 
cussion. A  lady  finally  applied  to  Mr.  Twain  for  his  opinion. 

"What  do  you  think,  Mr.  Twain,  about  the  existence  of  a 
heaven  or  hell  ? " 

"  I  do  not  want  to  express  an  opinion,"  said  Mr.  Twain,  gravely. 
"  It  is  policy  for  me  to  remain  silent.  I  have  friends  in  both, 
places." 


MAKE  TWAIN'S  LECTURES  AND  DINNER  SPEECHES. 

Mr.  Clemens  has  a  quaintness  about  his  lectures  which  is  indescrib- 
able. "One  night/'  writes  Eli  Perkins,  "I  sat  opposite  the  humorist 
while  he  made  an  after-dinner  speech.  I  think  it  was  on  the  occasion  of 
the  Authors'  Club,  dining  at  the  Gilsey  House,  and,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  his  subject  or  toast  was  'Our  children/  It  matters  not  what  the 
occasion  was,  it  is  the  speech  we  want.  Well,  I  took  that  speech  in 
shorthand,  and  I  can  read  it  to  you  as  Mark  delivered  it." 

"  How  did  he  look  and  how  did  he  begin/'  you  ask? 

He  arose  slowly  and  stood,  half  stooping  over  the  table.  Both  hands 
were  on  the  table,  palms  to  the  front.  There  was  a  look  of  intense 
earnestness  about  his  eyes.  It  seemed  that  the  weight  of  an  empire  was 
upon  his  shoulders.  His  sharp  eyes  looked  out  from  under  his  shaggy 
eyebrows,  moving  from  one  guest  to  another,  as  a  lawyer  scans  his  jury 
in  a  death  trial.  Then  he  commenced,  very  slowly: 

"  Our  children — yours — and — mine.  They  seem  like  little  things  to 
talk  about — our  children,  but  little  things  often  make  up  the  sum  of 
human  life — that's  a  good  sentence.  [Laughter.]  I  repeat  it,  little 
things  often  produce  great  things.  Now,  to  illustrate,  take  Sir  Isaac 
Newton — I  presume  some  of  you  have  heard  of  Mr.  Newton.  [Laughter.] 
Well,  once  when  Sir  Isaac  Newton — a  mere  lad — got  over  into  the  man's 
apple  orchard — I  don't  know  what  he  was  doing  there — [laughter] — I 
didn't  come  all  the  way  from  Hartford  to  q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n  Mr.  Newton's 
honesty — but  when  he  was  there — in  the  man's  orchard — he  saw  an  apple 
fall  and  he  was  a-t-t-racted  towards  it  [laughter]  and  that  led  to  the 


352  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

discovery — not  of  Mr.  Newton — [laughter] — but  of  the  great  law  of 
attraction  and  gravitation.  [Loud  laughter.] 

"And  there  was  once  another  great  discoverer I've  forgotten  his 

name,  and  I  don't  remember  what  he  discovered  [laughter],  but  I  know 
it  was  something  very  important,  and  I  hope  you  will  all  tell  your  chil- 
dren about  it,  when  you  get  home.  Well,  when  the  great  discoverer 
was  once  loafin'  around  down  in  Virginia,  and  a  puttiri'  in  his  time  flirt- 
ing with  Pocahontas 0,  Captain  John  Smith,  that  was  the  man's 

name! and  while  he  and  Pokawere  sitting  in  Mr.  Powhatan's  garden, 

he  accidently  pat  his  arm  around  her  and  picked  something a  simple 

weed,  which  proved  to  be  tobacco — and  now  we  find  it  in  every  Christian 
family,  shedding  its  civilizing  influence,  broadcast  throughout  the 
whole  religious  community.  [Laughter.] 

"  Now  there  was  another  great  man,  I  can't  think  of  Ms  name  either, 
who  used  to  loaf  around,  and  watch  the  great  chandelier  in  the  cathedral 
at  Pisa,  which  set  him  to  thinking  about  the  great  law  of  gunpowder, 
and  eventually  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  cotton  gin.  [Laughter.] 

"  Now  I  don't  say  this,  as  an  inducement  for  our  young  men,  to  loaf 
around  like  Mr.  Newton,  and  Mr.  Galileo,  and  Captain  Smith,  but  they 
were  once  little  babies,  two  days  old,  and  they  show  what  little  things 
have  sometimes  accomplished." 

In  a  recent  dinner  speech,  while  Mr.  Twain  was  talking  about  school 
children,  he  said  :  "  In  my  capacity  of  publisher,  I  recently  received  a 
manuscript  from  a  teacher,  which  embodied  a  number  of  answers,  given 
by  her  pupils,  to  questions  propounded.  These  answers  show  that  the 
children  had  nothing  but  the  sound  to  go  by ;  the  sense  was  perfectly 
empty.  Here  are  some  of  their  answers  to  words  they  were  asked  to 
define:  Auriferous — pertaining  to  an  orifice  [laughter] ;  ammonia — the 
food  of  the  gods  [renewed  laughter];  equestrian — one  who  asks  questions 
[roars  of  laughter] ;  parasite — a  kind  of  umbrella  [shouts  of  laughter]; 
ipecac — a  man  who  likes  a  good  dinner.  [Renewed  laughter.]  And 
here  is  the  definition  of  an  ancient  word,  honored  by  a  great  party  :  Re- 
publican— a  sinner  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  [Shouts  of  laughter  and 
applause.]  And  here  is  an  innocent  deliverance  of  a  zoological  kind: 
*  There  are  a  good  many  donkeys  in  the  theological  gardens.'  [Great 
laughter.]  Here  also  is  a  definition  which  really  isn't  very  bad  in  its 
way :  Demagogue — a  vessel  containing  beer  and  other  liquids.  [Pro- 
longed laughter.]  Here,  too,  is  a  sample  of  a  boy's  composition  on  girls, 
which,  I  must  say,  I  rather  like  : 

"  'Girls  are  very  stuckup  and  dignified  in  their  maner  and  behaveyour.  They 
think  more  of  dress  than  anything  and  like  to  play  with  dowls  and  rags.  They  cry 


MARK  TWAIN.  353 

if  they  see  a  cow  in  a  far  distance  and  are  afraid  of  guns.  They  stay  at  home  all  the 
time  and  go  to  church  every  Sunday.  They  are  al-ways  sick.  They  are  al-ways 
funy  and  making  fun  of  boys  hands  and  they  say  how  dirty.  They  cant  play 
marbles.  I  pity  them  poor  things.  They  make  fun  of  boys  and  then  turn  round  and 
love  them.  I  don't  belave  they  ever  kiled  a  cat  or  anything.  They  look  out  every 
nite  and  say,  '  Oh  a'nt  the  moon  lovely  ! '  Thir  is  one  thing  I  have  not  told  and  that 
is  they  al-ways  now  their  lessons  bettern  boys." 

Perhaps  the  best  parodox  in  the  English  language,  was  Mr.  Twain's 
ending  to  his  duel  story,  when  he  told  the  audience  how  opposed  he  was 
to  fighting  a  duel. 

" Why/'  said  he,  "I'm  so  opposed  to  fighting  a  duel — so  seriously 
and  religiously  opposed  to  fighting  a  duel,  that  Fve  made  up  my  mind, 
solemnly  and  earnestly,  that  if  any  one  ever  comes  to  me  and  challenges 
me  to  fight  a  duel,  I'll  take  him  kindly  by  the  hand,  lead  him  gently 
out,  behind  the  barn — take  an  axe — and  kill  him  !  "  [Loud  laughter]. 

I  never  knew  Mark  Twain  to  be  embarrassed  but  once. 

"  When  was  that?" 

Well,  it  was  when  he  made  a  speech  before  the  Papyrus  Club,  of  Bos- 
ton, at  its  annual  "Ladies'  Night."  On  that  occasion  Mark  was  struck 
speechless.  He  said  so  himself.  He  admitted  it.  He  said: 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — I  am  perfectly  astonished — a — s — t — o — n — i — s — h — ed — 

ladies  and  gentleman astonished  at  the  way  history  repeats  itself.     I  find  myself 

situated  at  this  moment  exactly  and  precisely  as  I  was  once  before,  years  ago  to  a  jot, 
to  a  tittle — to  a  very  hair.  There  isn't  a  shade  of  difference.  It  is  the  most  astonish- 
ing coincidence  that  ever — but  wait.  I  will  tell  you  the  former  instance,  and  then 
you  will  see  it  for  yourself.  Years  ago,  I  arrived  one  day  at  Salamanca,  N.  Y.,  east- 
ward bound;  must  change  cars  there  and  take  the  sleeper  train.  There  were  crowds 
of  people  there,  and  they  were  swarming  into  the  long  sleeper  train  and  packing  it 
full,  and  it  was  a  perfect  purgatory  of  rust  and  confusion  and  gritting  of  teeth  and 
soft,  sweet  and  low  profanity.  I  asked  the  young  man  in  the  ticket  office  if  I  could 
have  a  sleeping  section,  and  he  answered  '•'  No,"  with  a  snarl,  that  shriveled  me  up 
like  burned  leather.  I  went  off,  smarting  under  this  insult  to  my  dignity,  and  asked 
.another  local  official,  supplicatingly,  if  I  couldn't  have  some  poor  little  corner  some- 
where in  a  sleeping  car,  but  he  cut  me  short  with  a  venomous  "No,  you  can't; every 
corner  is  full.  Now,  don't  bother  me  any  more;"  and  he  turned  his  back  and  walked 
off.  My  dignity  was  in  a  state  now  which  can  not  be  described.  I  was  so  ruffled  that — 
well,  I  said  to  my  companion,  "  if  these  people  knew  who  I  am  they — "  but  my  com- 
panion cut  me  short  there,  "  Don't  talk  such  folly,"  he  said,  "  if  they  did  know  who 
you  are,  do  you  suppose  it  would  help  your  high  mightiness  to  a  vacancy  in  a  train 
which  has  no  vacancies,  in  it?" 

This  did  not  improve  my  condition  any  to  speak  of,  but  just  then  I  observed  that 
the  colored  porter  of  a  sleeping  car  had  his  eye  on  me.  I  saw  his  dark  countenance 
light  up.  lie  whispered  to  the  uniformed  conductor,  punctuating  with  nods  and 
jerks  toward  me,  and  straightway  this  conductor  came  forward,  oozing  politeness 
from  every  pore. 
23 


354  KIXGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Can  I  be  of  any  service  to  you?"  he  asked.  "Will  you  have  a  place  in  the 
sleeper?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "and  much  obliged,  too.  Give  me  any  thing,  any  thing  will 
answer." 

"  We  have  nothing  left  but  the  big  family  state-room,"  he  continued,  "  with  two 
berths  and  a  couple  of  arm-chairs  in  it,  but  it  is  entirely  at  your  disposal.  Here,  Tom, 
take  these  satchels  aboard." 

Then  he  touched  his  hat  and  we  and  the  colored  Tom  moved  a'ong.  I  was 
bursting  to  drop  just  one  little  remark  to  my  companion,  but  I  held  in  and  waited. 
Tom  made  us  comfortable  in  that  sumptuous  great  apartment,  and  then  said,  with 
many  bows  and  a  perfect  affluence  of  smiles: 

"Now  is  dey  anything  you  want,  sah?  case  you  kin  have  jes' any  thing  you 
wants.  It  don't  make  no  difference  what  it  is." 

"  Can  I  have  some  hot  water  and  a  tumbler  at  nine  to-night,  blazing  hot?"  1 
asked. 

"  You  know  about  the  right  temperature  for  a  hot  Scotch  punch." 

"  Yes,  sah,  dat  you  kin;  you  kin  pen  on  it,  I'll  get  it  myself." 

"  Good!  now  that  lamp  is  hung  too  high.  Can  I  have  a  big  coach  candle  fixed 
up  just  at  the  head  of  my  bed,  so  that  I  can  read  comfortably?  " 

"Yes,  sah;  you  kin,  I'll  fix  herup  myself,  an'  I'll  fix  her  so  she'll  burn  all  night. 
Yes,  sah;  an'  you  can  jes'  call  for  any  thing  you  want,  and  dish  yer  whole  railroad 
'11  be  turned  wrong  end  up,  an'  inside  out  for  to  get  it  for  you.  Dat's  so."  And  he 
disappeared. 

Well,  I  tilted  my  head  back,  hooked  my  thumbs  in  my  arm-holes,  smiled  a 
smile  on  my  companion,  and  said,  gently: 

"Well,  what  do  you  say  now?  " 

My  companion  was  not  in  a  humor  to  respond,  and  didn't.  The  next  moment 
that  smiling  black  face  was  thrust  in  at  the  crack  of  the  door,  and  this  speech  fol- 
lowed: 

"Laws  bless  you,  sah,  I  knowed  you  in  a  minute.  I  told  de  conductah  so. 
Laws!  I  knowed  you  de  minute  I  sot  eyes  on  you." 

"  Is  that  so,  my  boy?  (Handing  him  a  quadruple  fee.)    Who  am  I?  " 

"  Jenuel  McClellan,"  and  he  disappeared  again. 

My  companion  said,  vinegarishly,  "  Well,  well!  what  do  you  say  now?  "  Right 
there  comes  in  the  marvelous  coincidence  I  mentioned  a  while  ago,  viz.,  I  was  speech- 
less and  that  is  my  condition  now.  Perceive  it? 

Mr.  Twain  was  about  as  much  astonished  as  old  Mrs.  Bagley,  when 
Higgins  announced  the  death  of  her  husband  out  in  Nevada.  But  we 
will  let  Mark  tell  it: 

11  Higgins  was  a  simple  creature/'  said  Mark,  with  a  tearful  pathos 
in  his  voice  and  a  sad  look  in  his  eye,  "a  very  simple  fellow.  He  used  to 
haul  coal  for  old  Malthy.  When  the  lamented  Judge  Bagley  tripped 
and  fell  down  the  court-house  stairs  and  broke  his  neck,  it  was  a  great 
question  how  to  break  the  news  to  poor  Mrs.  Bagley.  But  finally  the 
body  was  put  into  Higgins'  wagon,  and  he  was  instructed  to  take  it  to 
Mrs.  B. ;  but  to  be  very  guarded  and  discreet  in  his  language,  and  not 


MARK  TWAIN.  355 

break  the  news  to  her  at  once,  but  to  do  so  gradually  and  gently.  When 
Higgins  got  there  with  his  sad  freight,  he  shouted  till  Mrs.  Bagley  came 
to  the  door. 

"  Then  he  said,  '  Does  the  widder  Bagley  live  here?' 

"  '  The  widow  Bagley?    No,  sir! ' 

"  '  I'll  bet  she  does.  But  have  it  your  own  way.  Well,  does  Judge 
Bagley  live  here? ' 

"  '  Yes,  judge  Bagley  lives  here.' 

"  '  I'll  bet  he  don't.  But  never  mind,  it  ain't  for  me  to  contradict. 
Is  the  judge  in?' 

"  '  No,  not  at  present.' 

' ' 1 1  jest  expected  as  much.  Because,  you  know — take  hold  o'  suthin, 
mum,  for  I'm  agoing  to  make  a  little  communication,  and  I  reckon  may- 
be it'll  jar  you  some.  There's  been  an  accident,  mum.  I've  got  the  old 
judge  curled  up  out  here  in  the  wagon,  and  when  you  see  him  you'll 
acknowledge  yourself  that  an  inquest  is  about  the  only  thing  that  could 
be  a  comfort  to  him! ' ' 

It  seems  that  social  matters  were  conducted  in  a  pretty  rude  manner 
out  in  Nevada  about  the  time  Mark  Twain  described  "  Scotty  Briggs 
Funeral."  There  is  no  doubt  but  that  Mr.  Twain's  descriptions  were 
generally  true  to  life.  The  humorist  tells  about  another  funeral  out 
there  quite  as  strange  as  the  obsequies  of  Scotty  Briggs.  He  says: 

The  church  was  densely  crowded  that  lovely  summer  Sabbath,  and  all,  as  their  eyes 
rested  upon  the  small  coffin,  seemed  impressed  by  the  poor  black  boy's  fate.  Above  the 
stillness  the  pastor's  voice  rose  and  chained  the  interest  of  every  one,  as  he  told,  with 
many  an  envied  compliment,  how  that  the  brave,  noble,  daring,  little  Johnny  Greer, 
when  he  saw  the  drowned  body  sweeping  down  toward  the  deep  part  of  the  river 
whence  the  agonized  parents  never  could  have  recovered  it  in  this  world,  gallantly 
sprung  into  the  stream  and,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  towed  the  corpse  to  shore  and  held 
it  fast  till  help  came  and  secured  it.  Johnny  Greer  was  sitting  just  in  front  of  me. 
A  ragged  street  boy,  with  eager  eye,  turned  upon  him  instantly  and  said  in  a  hoarse 
whisper: 

"No — but  did  you  though?" 

"Yes." 

"  Towed  the  carkis  ashore  and  saved  it  yo'self  ?  Cracky!  What  did  they  give 
you?" 

"Nothing, 

"W-h-a-t!  (with  intense  disgust.)  D'you  know  what  I'd  a  done?  I'd  a  anchored 
him  out  in  the  stream  and  said,  '  five  dollars,  gents,  or  you  can't  have  yo'  nigger.'  " 
[Laughter.] 

"  It  is  very  amusing  when  Mr.  Twain  makes  Buck  Grangerford  tell  what  a  feud  is. 
Buck  had  just  shot  at  a  man  in  the  woods. 

"Did  you  want  to  kill  him  Buck? "  asked  Huckleberry  Finn. 

"  Well,  I  bet  I  did." 


356  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  What  did  he  do  to  you?  " 

"Him?    He  never  done  nothing  to  me." 

"  Well,  then,  what  did  you  want  to  kill  him  for?  " 

"  Why,  nothing — only  it's  on  account  of  the  feud." 

"  What's  a  feud?  " 

"  Why,  where  was  you  raised?    Don't  you  know  what  a  feud  is?  " 

"Never  heard  of  it  before — tell  me  about  it." 

"  Well,"  says  Buck,  "a  feud  is  this  way:  A  man  has  a  quarrel  with  another 
man,  and  kills  him;  then  that  other  man's  brother  kills  him;  then  the  other  brothers, 
on  both  sides,  go  for  one  another;  then  the  cousins  chip  in — and  by-and-by  every 
body's  killed  off,  and  there  ain't  no  more  feud.  But  it's  kind  of  slow  and  takes  a 
long  time."  [Laughter.] 


MARK  TWAIN'S  MASTERPIECE. 

Tom  Sawyer  having  offended  his  sole  guardian,  Aunt  Polly,  is  by 
that  sternly  affectionate  dame  punished  by  being  sent  to  whitewash  the 
fence  in  front  of  the  garden.  The  world  seemed  a  hollow  mockery  to 
Tom,  who  had  planned  fun  for  that  day,  and  he  knew  that  he  would  be 
the  laughing  stock  of  all  the  boys  as  they  came  past,  and  saw  him  set  to 
work  like  a  "  nigger. "  But  a  great  inspiration  burst  upon  him,  and  he 
went  tranquilly  to  work.  "What  that  inspiration  was  will  appear  from 
what  follows. 

One  of  the  boys,  Ben  Rogers,  comes  by  and  pauses,  eating  a  par- 
ticularly fine  apple.  Tom  does  not  see  him.  Ben  stares  a  moment,  and 
then  says: 

"Hi-yi!  you're  up  a  stump,  ain't  you?" 

No  answer. ,  Tom  surveyed  his  last  touch  with  the  eye  of  an  artist, 
then  he  gave  another  gentle  sweep,  and  surveyed  the  result  as  before. 
Ben  ranged  up  alongside  of  him.  Tom's  mouth  watered  for  the  apple, 
but  he  stuck  to  his  work.  Ben  said: 

"  Hello,  old  chap,  you  got  to  work,  hey?  " 

"  "Why,  it's  you,  Ben;  I  wasn't  noticing." 

"  Say,  I'm  going  in  a-swimming,  I  am.  Don't  you  wish  you  could? 
But  of  course  you'd  ruther  work,  wouldn't  you?  Course  you  would!" 

Tom  contemplated  the  boy  a  bit,  and  said: 

"  What  do  you  call  work?" 

"  Why,  ain't  that  work?" 

Tom  resumed  his  whitewashing,  and  answered,  carelessly: 

"  Well,  may  be  it  is,  and  may  be  it  ain't.  All  I  know  is,  it  suits  Tom 
Sawyer." 

"Oh,  come  now,  you  don't  mean  to  let  on  that  you  like  it?" 

The  brush  continued  to  move. 


SAY,  TOM,  LET  ME  WHITEWASH  A  LITTLE? 


See  page  357. 


MARK  TWAIN.  357 

"  Like  it?  Well,  I  don't  see  why  I  oughtn't  to  like  it.  Does  a  boy. 
get  a  chance  to  whitewash  a  fence  every  day?" 

That  put  the  thing  in  a  new  light.  Ben  stopped  nibbling  his  apple. 
Tom  swept  his  brush  daintly  back  and  forth — stepped  back  to  note  the 
effect — added  a  touch  here  and  there — criticised  the  effect  again,  Ben 
watching  every  move,  and  getting  more  and  more  interested,  more  and 
more  absorbed.  Presently  he  said: 

"Say,  Tom,  let  me  whitewash  a  little." 

Tom  considered — was  about  to  consent — but  he  altered  his  mind. 
"  No,  no;  I  reckon  it  wouldn't  hardly  do,  Ben.  You  see,  Aunt  Polly's 
awful  particular  about  this  fence — right  here  on  the  street,  you  know — 
but  if  it  was  the  back  fence  I  wouldn't  mind,  and  she  wouldn't.  Yes, 
she's  awful  particular  about  this  fence;  it's  got  to  be  done  very  careful; 
I  reckon  there  ain't  one  boy  in  a  thousand,  may  be  two  thousand,  that 
can  do  it  in  the  way  it's  got  to  be  done." 

"No — is  that  so?  Oh,  come  now;  lemme  just  try,  only  just  a  little. 
I'd  let  you,  if  you  was  me,  Tom." 

"  Ben,  I'd  like  to,  honest  Injun;  but  Aunt  Polly — well,  Jim  wanted 
to  do  it,  but  she  wouldn't  let  him.  Sid  wanted  to  do  it,  but  she  wouldn't 
let  Sid.  Now  don't  you  see  how  I'm  fixed  ?  If  you  was  to  tackle  this 
fence,  and  anything  was  to  happen  to  it " 

"  Oh,  shucks!  I'll  be  just  as  careful.  Now  lemme  try.  Say — I'll 
give  you  the  core  of  my  apple." 

"Well,  here.     No,  Ben;  now  don't;  I'm  afeard " 

"  I'll  give  you  all  of  it  1" 

Tom  gave  up  the  brush  with  reluctance  in  his  face,  but  alacrity  in 
his  heart.  And  while  Ben  worked  and  sweated  in  the  sun,  the  retired 
artist  sat  on  a  barrel  in  the  shade  close  by,  dangling  his  legs,  munched 
his  apple,  and  planned  the  slaughter  of  more  innocents.  There  was  no 
lack  of  material;  boys  happened  along  every  little  while;  they  came  to 
jeer,  but  remained  to  whitewash.  By  the  time  Ben  was  fagged  out, 
Tom  had  traded  the  next  chance  to  Billy  Fisher  for  a  kite  in  good  repair; 
and  when  he  played  out,  Johnny  Miller  bought  it  for  a  dead  rat  and  a 
string  to  swing  it  with;  and  so  on,  and  so  on,  hour  after  hour.  And 
when  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  came,  from  being  a  poor,  poverty- 
stricken  boy  in  the  morning,  Tom  was  literally  rolling  in  wealth.  He 
had,  besides  the  things  I  have  mentioned,  twelve  marbles,  part  of  a  Jew's 
harp,  a  piece  of  blue  bottle-glass  to  look  through,  a  spool  cannon,  a  key 
that  wouldn't  unlock  anything,  a  fragment  of  chalk,  a  glass  stopper  of 
a  decanter,  a  tin  soldier,  a  couple  of  tadpoles,  six  fire-crackers,  a  kitten 
with  only  one  eye,  a  brass  door-knob,  a  dog-collar — but  no  dog — the 


358  'KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

handle  of  a  knife,  four  pieces  of  orange-peel,  and  a  dilapidated  old 
window  sash.  He  had  had  a  nice,  good,  idle  time  all  the  while — plenty 
of  company — and  the  fence  had  three  coats  of  whitewash  on  it!  If  he 
hadn't  run  out  of  whitewash,  he  would  have  bankrupted  every  boy  in  the 
village. 

Tom  said  to  himself  that  it  was  not  such  a  hollow  world  after  all. 
He  had  discovered  a  great  law  of  human  action  without  knowing  it, 
namely,  that  in  order  to  make  a  man  or  a  boy  covet  a  thing,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  make  it  difficult  to  attain. 

A  dinner  speech  that  the  Scotch  newspapers  could  never  understand 
was  Mark's  at  the  anniversary  festival  of  the  Scottish  Corporation  of 
London.  In  response  to  the  toast  of  "The  Ladies,"  Mark  Twain 
replied.  The  following  is  the  speech  as  reported  in  the  London 
Observer  : 

I  am  proud,  indeed,  of  the  distinction  of  being  chosen  to  respond  to  this  especial 
toast,  to  "  The  Ladies,"  or  to  women  if  you  please,  for  that  is  the  preferable  term,  per- 
haps; it  is  certainly  the  older,  and  therefore  the  more  entitled  to  reverence.  [Laughter.] 
I  have  noticed  that  the  Bible,  with  that  plain,  blunt  honesty  which  is  such  a  con- 
spicuous characteristic  of  the  Scriptures,  is  always  particular  to  never  refer  to  even 
the  illustrious  mother  of  all  mankind  herself  as  a  "lady,"  but  speaks  of  her  as  a 
woman.  [Laughter  ]  It  is  odd,  but  you  will  find  it  is  so.  I  am  peculiarly  proud  of 
this  honor,  because  I  think  that  the  toast  to  women  is  one  which,  by  right  and  by 
every  rule  of  gallantry,  should  take  precedence  of  all  others — of  the  army,  of  the 
navy,  of  even  royalty  itself — perhaps,  though  the  latter  is  not  necessary  in  this  day 
and  in  this  land,  for  the  reason  that,  tacitly,  you  do  drink  a  broad  general  health  to 
all  good  women  when  you  drink  the  health  of  the  Queen  of  England  and  the 
Princess  of  Wales.  [Loud  cheers.]  I  have  in  miud  a  poem  just  now  which  is 
familiar  to  you  all,  familiar  to  every  body.  And  what  an  inspiration  that  was  (and 
how  instantly  the  present  toast  recalls  the  verses  to  all  our  minds)  when  the  most 
noble,  the  most  gracious,  the  purest,  and  sweetest  of  all  poets  says: 
"Woman!  O  woman! — er — 

Worn " 

[Laughter.]  However,  you  remember  the  lines;  and  you  remember  how  feelingly, 
how  daintily,  how  almost  imperceptibly,  the  verses  rise  up  before  you,  and  as  you 
contemplate  the  finished  marvel,  your  homage  grows  into  worship  of  the  intellect 
that  could  create  so  fair  a  thing  out  of  mere  breath,  mere  words.  And  you  cail  to 
mind  now,  as  I  speak,  how  the  poet,  with  stern  fidelity  to  the  history  of  all  humanity, 
delivers  this  beautiful  child  of  his  heart  and  his  brain  over  to  the  trials  and  the  sorrows 
that  must  come  to  all,  sooner  or  later,  that  abide  in  the  earth,  and  how  the  pathetic 
story  culminates  in  that  apostrophe — so  wild,  so  regretful,  so  full  of  mournful  retro- 
spection. The  lines  run  thus: 

"  Alas! — alas! — a — alas. 

Alas ! alas !  " 

— and  so  on.  [Laughter.]  I  do  not  remember  the  rest;  but,  taken  altogether,  it 
seems  to  me  that  poem  is  the  noblest  tribute  to  woman  that  human  genius  has  ever 


MARK  TWAIN.       ,  •  359 

brought  forth — [laughter] — and  I  feel  that  if  I  were  to  talk  hours  I  could  not  do  my 
great  theme  completer  or  more  graceful  justice  than  I  have  done  now  in  simply 
quoting  that  poet's  matchless  words.  [Renewed  laughter.]  The  phases  of  the 
womanly  nature  are  infinite  in  their  variety.  Take  any  type  of  woman,  and  you 
shall  find  in  it  something  to  respect,  something  to  admire,  something  to  love.  And 
you  shall  find  the  whole  joining  you  heart  and  hand.  Who  was  more  patriotic  than 
Joan  of  Arc?  Who  was  braver?  Who  has  given  us  a  grander  instance  of  self- 
sacrificing  devotion?  Ah!  you  remember,  you  remember  well,  what  a  throb  of  pain, 
what  a  great  tidal  wave  of  grief  swept  over  us  all  when  Joan  of  Arc  fell  at  Waterloo. 
[Much  laughter.]  Who  does  not  sorrow  for  the  loss  of  Sappho,  the  sweet  singer  of 
Israel?  [Laughter.]  Who  among  us  does  not  miss  the  gentle  ministrations,  the 
softening  influences,  the  humble  piety,  of  Lucretia  Borgia?  [Laughter]  Who  can 
join  in  the  heartless  libel  that  says  woman  is  extravagant  in  dress  when  he  can  look 
back  and  call  to  mind  our  simple  and  lowly  mother  Eve  arrayed  in  her  modification 
of  the  Highland  costume.  [Roars  of  laughter.]  Sir,  women  have  been  soldiers, 
women  have  been  painters,  women  have  been  poets.  As  long  as  language  lives  the 
name  of  Cleopatra  will  live.  And  not  because  she  conquered  George  III. — [laughter] 
— but  because  she  wrote  those  divine  lines: 

"  Let  dogs  delight  to  bark  and  bite, 

For  God  hath  made  them  so." 

[More  laughter.]  The  story  of  the  world  is  adorned  with  the  names  of  illustrious 
ones  of  our  own  sex — some  of  them  sons  of  St.  Andrew  too — Scott,  Bruce,  Burns, 
the  warrior  Wallace,  Ben  Nevis — [laughter] — the  gifted  Ben  Lomond,  and  the  great 
new  Scotchman,  Ben  Disraeli.*  [Great  laughter.]  Out  of  the  great  plains  of  history 
tcwer  whole  mountain  ranges  of  sublime  women — the  Queen  of  Sheba,  Josephine, 
Semiramis,  Sairey  Gamp;  the  list  is  endless — [laughter] — but  I  will  not  call  the 
mighty  roll,  the  names  rise  up  in  your  own  memories  at  the  mere  suggestion,  luminous 
with  the  glory  of  deeds  that  can  not  die,  hallowed  by  the  loving  worship  of  the  good 
and  the  true  of  all  epochs  and  all  climes.  [Cheers.]  Suffice  it  for  our  pride  and  our 
honor  that  we  in  our  day  have  added  to  it  such  names  as  those  of  Grace  Darling  and 
Florence  Nightingale.  [Cheers.]  Woman  is  all  that  she  should  be — gentle,  patient, 
long-suffering,  trustful,  unselfish,  full  of  generous  impulses.  It  is  her  blessed  mission 
to  comfort  the  sorrowing,  plead  for  the  erring,  encourage  the  faint  of  purpose,  succor 
the  distressed,  uplift  the  fallen,  befriend  the  friendless — in  n  word,  afford  the  healing 
of  her  sympathies  and  a  home  in  her  heart  for  all  the  bruised  and  persecuted  children 
of  misfortune  that  knock  at  its  hospitable  door.  [Cheers.]  And  when  I  say,  God 
bless  her,  there  is  none  among  us  who  has  known  the  ennobling  affection  of  a  wife, 
or  the  steadfast  devotion  of  a  mother  but  in  his  heart  will  say,  Amen!  [Loud  and 
prolonged  cheering.] 

*  Mr.  Benjamin  Disraeli,  at  that  time  Prime  Minister  of  England,  had  just  been  elected 
Lord  Rector  of  Glasgow  University,  and  had  made  a  speech  which  gave  rise  to  a  world  of 
discussion. 


DWIGHT  L.   MOODY. 

THE  GREAT  REVIVALIST. 


BIOGRAPHY   AND   REMINISCENCES. 

Dwight  L.  Moody,  the  evangelist  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  born  at  North- 
field,  Mass.,  February  5,  1837.  His  father  lived  in  an  old-fashioned  frame  house, 
and,  by  farming  a  few  acres  and  working  at  his  trade  (which  was  that  of  a  stone 
mason)  earned  a  comfortable  living  for  his  family.  This  comprised  seven  children, 
•of  which  Dwight  was  the  youngest.  When  Dwight  was  but  four  years  old,  his 
father  died  suddenly.  Mrs.  Moody  bore  with  a  brave  heart  the  weight  of  the  family 
cares  and  steadfastly  refused  to  part  from  any  of  her  children.  . 

Through  poverty  and  self  denial  Dwight  grew  up  —  a  sturdy,  healthy,  self-reli- 
ant boy.  He  was  full  of  animal  spirits,  and  liked  fun  and  anecdotes  so  much  more 
than  study  that  his  record  in  school  was  poor;  but  he  was  observant,  watchful  and 
susceptible  to  lessons  learned  from  real  life  or  nature. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen,  he  left  Northfield  for  Boston.  After  long  search  for 
employment,  his  uncle,  Samuel  S.  Holton,  a  shoe  merchant,  agreed  to  hire  him  at  a 
small  salary.  He  soon  became  an  attendant  at  the  Congregational  church.  Through 
the  direct  personal  effort  of  his  teacher  in  the  Sunday-school,  he  was  converted,  and 
gave  himself  to  the  service  of  God.  At  the  age  of  twenty  Mr.  Moody  left  Boston  for 
Chicago,  in  order  that  he  might  have  a  more  extended  field.  He  found  it.  As 
teacher  in  Sunday-school,  as  street  solicitor  for  scholars,  as  mission  worker  among 
sailors,  visitor  to  prisons  and  hospitals,  his  work  was  constant.and  self-denying.  A 
little  later  he  hired  a  vacant  room  in  a  degraded  portion  of  Chicago,  and,  gathering 
around  him  crowds  of  abandoned  men  and  women  and  unfortunate  children,  he 
preached  the  gospel  to  them  and  saved  many  souls.  A  larger  room  became  neces- 
••ry,  and  within  a  year  the  average  attendance  at  his  Sunday-school  was  650. 

In  1860  he  was  made  city  missionary  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
made  longer  tours  over  the  city,  assisting  destitute  families  and  praying  with  them. 

In  1861  he  became  active  in  the  organization  of  a  system  of  visitation  and  prayer 
meetings  among  the  troops  gathered  at  Camp  Douglas,  near  the  city  of  Chicago. 
After  the  fall  of  Donelson,  in  February,  1862,  he  was  sent  to  bear  consolation  to 
wounded  and  dying  volunteers.  Many  of  his  most  vivid  and  impressive  anecdotes 
and  illustrations  are  drawn  from  incidents  in  his  battle-field  experience. 

In  1862  he  was  married  to  Miss  Emma  C.  Revell.  His  wife  was  an  active  worker 
in  missions,  and  in  harmony  with  his  self-denying  life.  To  them  have  been  born  two 
children — Emma  and  Willie — whose  names  are  often  mentioned  in  his  anecdotes. 

In  1863  a  large  building  was  erected  in  Chicago  for  his  Sunday-school  and  con- 
gregation. This  was  burned  in  the  great  fire  of  1871.  Mr.  Moody  then  went  East, 

360 


D  WIGHT  L.  MOODY.  361 

holding  revivals  in  Brooklyn,  Philadelphia  and  elsewhere,  receiving  contributions  to 
rebuild  his  church.  He  was  thus  enabled  to  build  a  mammoth  wooden  tabernacle  on 
the  old  site.  One  thousand  children  were  present  on  the  Sunday  after  it  was  finished. 
Finding  the  demand  for  evangelical  labor  in  other  fields  urgent,  he  began  to  visit 
other  cities  and  churches  and  hold  special  religious  services.  In  nearly  all  the  large 
cities  of  the  Union  he  has  labored  successfully.  In  1871  he  met  Mr.  Ira  D.  Sankey, 
the  sweet  singer,  and  soon  associated  him  as  a  co-worker  in  the  ripened  harvest  field. 
Together  they  labored  in  America,  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  both  at  home  and 
abroad  created  such  a  revival  of  religious  interest  as  this  centuiy  had  not  seen  before. 

A  devout  student  of  the  Bible,  uneducated,  except  in  the  art  of 
saving  souls,  intensely  earnest,  untiring  in  activity,  Dwight  L. 
Moody  is  the  foremost  evangelist  of  the  century. 

His  weapon  to  convert  men's  souls  has  been  the  typical  story — 
the  modern  parable.  His  best  anecdotes  and  stories  are  contrib- 
uted to  this  book,  and  no  parables  except  those  of  our  Saviour  are 
better  or  more  powerful  for  good. 

In  speaking  of  the  necessity  of  a  new  birth,  one  day,  Mr.  Moody 
said  :  "  The  sinner  must  have  a  new  heart.  A  man  has  bought  a 
farm,  and  he  finds  on  that  farm  an  old  pump.  He  goes  to  the 
pump  and  begins  to  pump.  And  a  person  comes  to  him  and  says : 

"  'Look  here,  my  friend,  you  do  not  want  to  use  that  water.  The 
man  that  lived  here  before,  he  used  that  water,  and  it  poisoned 
him  and  his  wife  and  his  children — the  water  did.' 

'"Is  that  so?'  says  the  man.  'Well,  I  will  soon  make  that 
right.  I  will  find  a  remedy.'  And  he  goes  and  gsts  some  paint, 
and  he  paints  up  the  pump,  putties  up  all  the  holes,  and  fills  up  the 
•cracks  in  it,  and  has  got  a  fine-looking  pump.  And  he  says:  '  Now 
I  am  sure  it  is  all  right. ' 

"  You  would  say,  '  "What  a  fool  to  go  a-nd  paint  the  pump  when 
the  water  is  bad  !'  But  that  is  what  sinners  are  up  to.  They  are 
trying  to  paint  up  the  old  pump  when  the  water  is  bad.  It  was  a 
new  well  he  wanted.  When  he  dug  a  new  well  it  was  all  right. 
Make  the  fountain  good,  and  the  stream  will  be  good.  Instead  of 
painting  the  pump  and  making  new  resolutions,  my  friend,  stop  it, 
and  ask  God  to  give  you  a  new  heart." 

Mr.  Moody  is  now  president  of  the  Congregational  Theological 
•Seminary,  but  still  gives  much  time  to  revival  work. 


362  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


MOODY'S  THEOLOGY. 

STORIES,   ANECDOTES,    PATHOS,    RELIGION. 

The  sunny  side  of  life  will  be  in  heaven;  still  there  is  sunlight  here. 
Love  is  sunlight,  the  kiss  of  love  is  a  ray  of  sunlight  and  it  will  melt  a 
human  soul.  Christianity  is  all  sunlight.  It  is  a  kiss  for  a  blow.  A 
soul  can  be  warmed  with  love  and  love  will  save  it. 

One  day  a  Christian  gentleman  came  to  me,  all  in  tears.  He  said: 
"  I  have  just  gotten  my  brother  out  of  the  penitentiary.  Will  you  not 
take  an  interest  in  him?  Let  me  bring  him  to  you.  "Will  you  be  intro- 
duced to  a  convict?" 

"  Bring  him  to  me,"  I  said.  "Let  me  take  him  by  the  hand.  Let  us 
see  what  kindness  and  love  will  do." 

The  gentleman  brought  him  in  and  introduced  him,  and  I  took  him 
by  the  hand  and  told  him  I  was  glad  to  see  him.  I  invited  him  up  to 
my  house,  and  when  I  took  him  into  my  family  I  introduced  him  as  a 
friend.  "When  my  little  daughter  came  into  the  room,  I  said: 

"Emma,  this  is  papa's  friend."  And  she  went  up  and  kissed  him, 
and  the  man  sobbed  aloud.  After  the  child  left  the  room,  I  said, 

"What  is  the  matter? " 

" 0,  sir,"  he  said,  "I  have  not  had  a  kiss  for  years.  The  last  kiss  I 
had  was  from  my  mother,  and  she  was  dying.  I  thought  I  would  never 
have  another  one  again." 

His  heart  was  broken. 

A  lady  came  into  the  office  of  the  New  York  City  Mission,  and  said 
that,  although  she  did  not  think  she  could  do  very  much  of  active  work 
for  the  Lord,  yet  she  should  like  to  distribute  a  few  tracts.  One  day 
she  saw  a  policeman  taking  a  poor  drunken  woman  to  jail — a  miserable 
object,  ragged,  dirty,  with  hair  disordered;  but  the  lady's  heart  went  out 
in  sympathy  toward  her.  She  found  the  woman  after  she  came  out  of 
jail,  and  just  went  and  folded  her  arms  around  her  and  kissed  her. 
The  woman  exclaimed,  "  My  God  !  what  did  you  do  that  for  9  "  and  she 
replied: 

"I  don't  know,  but  I  think  Jesus  sent  me  to  do  it." 

"Oh,  don't  kiss  me  any  more,"  said  the  woman,  "you'll  break  my 
heart.  Why,  nobody  hasn't  kissed  me  since  my  mother  died.  " 

But  that  kiss  brought  the  woman  to  the  feet  of  the  Saviour,  and  for 
the  last  three  years  she  has  been  living  a  godly,  Christian  life,  won  to 
God  by  a  kiss. 


D WIGHT  L.  MOODY.  363 

A  KISS  IS  BETTER  THAN  A  BLOW. 

One  morning  my  dear  little  daughter  Emma  got  up  Gross  and  spoke 
in  a  cross  way,  and  finally  I  said  to  her: 

"  Emma,  if  you  speak  in  that  way  again,  I  shall  have  to  punish 

you.** 

Now  it  was  not  because  I  didn't  love  her ;  it  was  because  I  did  love 
her,  and  if  I  had  to  correct  her  it  was  for  the  good  of  the  little  child. 
One  morning  she  got  up  cross  again.  I  said  nothing,  but  when  she  was 
getting  ready  to  go  to  school  she  came  up  to  me  and  said: 

"Papa  kiss  me." 

I  said,  "Emma,  I  can  not  kiss  you  this  morning." 

"Why,  father?" 

"  Because  you  have  been  cross  again  this  morning.     I  can  not  kiss 

you." 

"Why,  papa,  "said  Emma,  "you  never  refused  to  kiss  me  before." 

"Well,  you  have  been  naughty  this  morning." 

"Why  don't  you  kiss  me?"  she  said  again. 

"  Because  you  have  been  naughty.  You  will  have  to  go  to  school 
without  your  kiss." 

She  went  into  the  other  room  where  her  mother  was  and  said, 
"Mamma,  papa  don't  love  me.  He  won't  kiss  me.  I  wish  you  would 
go  and  get  him  to  kiss  me." 

"  You  know,  Emma,"  said  her  mother,  "  that  your  father  loves  you, 
but  you  have  been  naughty." 

So  she  couldn't  be  kissed  and  she  went  down  stairs  crying  as  if  her 
heart  would  break,  and  I  loved  her  so  well  that  the  tears  came  into  my 
eyes.  I  could  not  help  crying,  and  when  I  heard  her  going  down  stairs 
I  could  not  keep  down  my  tears.  I  think  I  loved  her  then  better  than  I 
ever  did,  and  when  I  heard  the  door  close  I  went  to  the  window  and  saw 
her  going  down  the  street  weeping.  I  didn't  feel  good  all  that  day.  I 
believe  I  felt  a  good  deal  worse  than  the  child  did,  and  I  was  anxious  for 
her  to  come  home.  How  long  that  day  seemed  to  me.  And  when  she 
came  home  at  night  and  came  to  me  and  asked  me  to  forgive  her,  and  told 
me  how  sorry  she  felt,  how  gladly  I  took  her  up  and  kissed  her,  and  how 
happy  she  went  up  stairs  to  her  bed.  It  is  just  so  with  God.  He  loves 
you,  and  when  He  chastises  you,  it  is  for  your  own  good.  If  you  will 
only  come  to  Him  and  tell  Him  how  sorry  you  are,  how  gladly  He  will 
receive  you  and  how  happy  you  will  make  Him,  and  oh,  how  happy  you 
will  be  yourself. 

THE  MOTHER  RULES  BY  LOVE. — The  other  night  I  was  talking  in 
the  inquiry-room  to  a  noble-looking  young  man,  who  was  in  great  agony 


364  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

of  soul.  I  asked  him  what  had  made  him  anxious.  "Was  it  the  address 
or  any  of  the  hymns?  He  looked  up  in  my  face,  and  said,  "  It  was  my 
mother's  letter. "  She  had  written  him,  asking  him  to  attend  that  meet- 
ing, and  had  said  she  would  be  praying  for  him  when  he  was  at  the 
meeting.  The  thought  of  his  mother's  prayers  and  agony  had  gone 
home  to  his  heart,  and  that  night  he  found  the  Savior. 

THE  CHURCH  WINS  BY  LOVE. — In  Chicago,  a  few  years  ago,  there 
was  a  little  boy  who  went  to  one  of  the  mission  Sunday-schools.  His 
father  moved  to  another  part  of  the  city,  about  five  miles  away,  and 
every  Sunday  that  boy  came  past  thirty  or  forty  Sunday-schools  to  the 
one  he  attended.  And  one  Sunday  a  lady,  who  was  out  collecting  schol- 
ars for  a  Sunday-school,  met  him  and  asked  why  he  went  so  far,  past  so 
many  schools. 

"  There  are  plenty  of  others/'  said  she,  "just  as  good." 

"  They  may  be  as  good,"  said  the  boy,  "  but  they  are  not  so  good  for 
me." 

"Why  not?"  she  asked. 

"  Because  they  love  a  fellow  over  there,"  he  answered. 

Ah!  love  won  him.  "  Because  they  love  a  fellow  over  there! "  How 
easy  it  is  to  reach  people  through  love!  Sunday-school  teachers  should 
win  the  affections  of  their  scholars  if  they  wish  to  lead  them  to  Christ. 

LOVE  HAS  SAVED  A  MOTHER. — I  remember  when  on  the  North  Side 
I  tried  to  reach  a  family  time  and  again  and  failed.  One  night  in  the 
meeting  I  noticed  one  of  the  little  boys  of  that  family.  He  hadn't 
come  for  any  good,  however;  he  was  sticking  pins  in  the  backs  of  the 
other  boys.  I  thought  if  I  could  get  hold  of  him  it  would  do  good.  I 
used  always  to  go  to  the  door  and  shake  hands  with  the  boys,  and  when 
I  got  to  the  door  and  saw  this  little  boy  coming  out,  I  shook  hands  with 
him,  and  patted  him  on  the  head,  and  said  I  was  glad  to  see  him,  and 
hoped  he  would  come  again.  He  hung  his  head  and  went  away.  The 
next  night,  however,  he  came  back,  and  he  behaved  better  than  he  did 
the  previous  night.  He  came  two  or  three  times  after,  and  then  asked 
us  to  pray  for  him  that  he  might  become  a  Christian.  That  was  a 
happy  night  for  me.  He  became  a  Christian  and  a  good  one.  One 
night  I  saw  him  weeping.  I  wondered  if  his  old  temper  had  got  hold 
of  him  again,  and  when  he  got  up  I  wondered  what  he  was  going  to  say. 

"  I  wish  you  would  pray  for  my  mother,"  he  said.  When  the  meet- 
ing was  over  I  went  to  him  and  asked,  "  Have  you  ever  spoken  to  your 
mother  or  tried  to  pray  with  her?" 

"Well,  you  know,  Mr.  Moody,"  he  replied,  "I never  had  an  oppor- 
tunity; she  don't  believe,  and  won't  hear  me." 


DWIGHT  L.  MOODY.  365- 

"Now,"  I  said,  "I  want  you  to  talk  to  your  mother  to-night."  For 
years  I  had  been  trying  to  reach  her  and  couldn't  do  it. 

So  I  urged  him  to  talk  to  her  that  night,  and  I  said,  "I  will  pray 
for  you  both."  When  he  got  to  the  sitting-room  he  found  some  people 
there,  and  he  sat  waiting  for  an  opportunity,  when  his  mother  said  it 
was  time  for  him  to  go  to  bed.  He  went  to  the  door  undecided.  He 
took  a  step,  stopped,  and  turned  around,  and  hesitated  for  a  minute, 
then  ran  to  his  mother  and  threw  his  arms  around  her  neck,  and  buried 
his  face  in  her  bosom.  "  What  is  the  matter?  "  she  asked — she  thought 
he  was  sick.  Between  his  sobs  he  told  his  mother  how  for  five  weeks  he 
had  wanted  to  be  a  Christian;  how  he  had  stopped  swearing;  how  he 
was  trying  to  be  obedient  to  her  and  how  happy  he  would  be  if  she 
would  be  a  Christian,  and  then  went  off  to  bed.  She  sat  for  a  few  min- 
utes, but  couldn't  stand  it,  and  went  up  to  his  room.  When  she  got  to 
the  door  she  heard  him  weeping  and  praying,  "  Oh,  God,  convert  my 
dear  mother."  She  came  down  again,  but  couldn't  sleep  that  night. 
Next  day  she  told  the  boy  to  go  and  ask  Mr.  Moody  to  come  over  and 
see  her.  He  called  at  my  place  of  business — I  was  in  business  then — 
and  I  went  over  as  quiet  as  I  could.  I  found  her  sitting  in  a  rocking- 
chair  weeping.  "  Mr.  Moody,"  she  said,  "I  want  to  become  a  Chris- 
tian." "  What  has  brought  that  change  over  you,  I  thought  you  didn't 
believe  in  it?"  Then  she  told  me  how  her  boy  had  come  to  her,  and 
how  she  hadn't  slept  any  all  night,  and  how  her  sin  rose  up  before  her 
like  a  dark  mountain.  The  next  Sunday  that  boy  came  and  led  that 
mother  into  the  Sabbath-school  and  she  became  a  Christian  worker. 

Oh,  little  children,  if  you  find  Christ  tell  it  to  your  fathers  and 
mothers.  Throw  your  arms  around  their  necks  and  lead  them  to  Jesus J 

LOVE  Wow  A  COAL  MINER. — When  I  was  holding  meetings  a  little 
time  ago  at  Wharnecliff,  in  England,  a  coal  district,  a  great  burly  coll- 
ier came  up  to  me  and  said,  in  his  Yorkshire  dialect: 

"  Dost  know  wha  was  at  meetin'  t'night,  Mr.  Moody?" 

"No,"  I  answered. 

"  Why,"  said  he,  "  Sandy  Sykes  was  there." 

The  name  was  a  familiar  one.  Sandy  was  a  very  bad  man,  one  of  the 
wildest,  wickedest  men  in  Yorkshire,  according  to  his  own  confession, 
and  according  to  the  confession  of  every  body  who  kneAV  him. 

"Well,"  said  the  man,  "he  cam' into  meetin' an' said  you  didn't, 
preach  right;  he  said  thou  didn't  preach  nothin'  but  the  love  o'  Christ, 
an'  that  won't  do  for  drunken  colliers;  ye  wan't  shake  'em  over  a  pit,, 
and  he  says  he'll  ne'er  come  again." 


366  XINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Sandy  thought  I  didn't  preach  about  hell.  Mark  you,  my  friends,  I 
believe  in  the  pit  that  burns,  in  the  fire  that's  never  quenched,  in  the 
worm  that  never  dies;  but  I  believe  that  the  magnet  that  goes  down  to 
the  bottom  of  the  pit  is  the  love  of  Jesus.  I  didn't  expect  to  see  Sandy 
again,  but  he  came  the  next  night,  without  washing  his  face,  right  from 
the  pit,  with  all  his  working  clothes  upon  him.  This  drunken  collier 
sat  down  on  one  of  the  seats  that  were  used  for  the  children,  and  got  as 
near  to  me  as  possible.  The  sermon  was  love  from  first  to  last.  He 
listened  at  first  attentively,  but  by-and-by  I  saw  him  with  the  sleeve  of 
his  rough  coat,  wiping  his  eyes.  Soon  after  we  had  an  inquiry  meeting, 
when  some  of  those  praying  colliers  got  around  him,  and  it  wasn't  long 
before  he  was  crying: 

"  0,  Lord,  save  me;  I  am  lost;  Jesus  have  mercy  upon  me;"  and  he  left 
that  meeting  a  new  creature.  His  wife  told  me  herself  what  occurred 
when  he  came  home.  His  little  children  heard  him  coming  along — they 
knew  the  step  of  his  heavy  clogs — and  ran  to  their  mother  in  terror, 
clinging  to  her  skirts.  He  opened  the  door  as  gently  as  could  be.  He 
had  had  a  habit  of  banging  the  doors.  When  he  came  into  the  house  and 
saw  the  children  clinging  to  their  mother,  frightened,  he  just  stooped 
down  and  picked  up  the  youngest  girl  in  his  arms,  and  looked  at  her, 
the  tears  rolling  down  his  cheeks. 

"Mary,  God  has  sent  thy  father  home  to  thee,"  and  kissed  her. 

He  picked  up  another,  "God  has  sent  thy  father  home/'  and  from 
one  to  another  he  went,  and  kissed  them  all;  and  then  came  to  his  wife 
and  put  his  arms  around  her  neck, 

"Don't  cry,  lass,"  he  sobbed,  "don't  cry.  God  has  sent  thy  hus- 
band home  at  last;  don't  cry,"  and  all  she  could  do  was  to  put  her  arms 
around  his  neck  and  sob.  And  then  he  said:  "Have  you  got  a  Bible 
in  the  house,  lass?"  They  hadn't  such  a  thing.  "  Well,  lass,  if  we 
haven't  we  must  pray."  They  got  down  on  their  knees,  and  all  he  could 

say  was: 

"  Gentle  Jesus,  meek  and  mild, 
Look  upon  a  little  child; 
Pity  my  simplicity — 

for  Jesus  Christ's  sake,  amen."  It  was  a  simple  prayer,  but  God  answered 
it.  While  I  was  at  Barnet,  some  time  after  that,  a  friend  came  tome  and 
said:  "  I've  got  good  news  for  you;  Sandy  Sykes  is  preaching  the  gospel 
everywhere  he  goes — in  the  pit,  and  out  of  the  pit,  and  is  winning  every 
body  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

JESUS  SAVES  BY  LOVE. — An  aged  man,  over  ninety  years  of  age,  was 
asked  by  his  pastor  this  question: 

"My  dear  aged  friend,  do  you  love  Jesus  ?" 


DW1GHT  L,  MOODY.  367 

His  deeply-furrowed  face  was  lit  up  with  a  smile  that  sixty-seven 
years  of  discipleship  had  imparted,  and  grasping  my  hand  with  both  of 
his,  said: 

"Oh!  I  can  tell  you  something  better  than  that." 

"What  is  that?"  I  asked. 

"  Oh,  sir  ! "  he  said.     "  He  loves  me." 

LOVE  SAVES  THE  CHILDREN. — My  little  boy  had  some  trouble  with 
his  sister  one  Saturday  and  he  did  not  want  to  forgive  her.  And  at  night 
he  was  going  to  say  his  prayers  and  I  wanted  to  see  how  he  would  say 
his  prayers,  and  he  knelt  down  by  his  mother  and  said  his  prayers,  and 
then  I  went  up  to  him  and  I  said: 

"Willie,  did  you  pray?" 

"  Yes,  papa,  I  said  my  prayers." 

"Yes,  but  did  you  pray?" 

"  I  said  my  prayers." 

"  I  know  you  said  them,  but  did  you  pray?  " 

He  hung  his  head. 

"  You  are  angry  with  your  sister?" 

"  Well,  she  had  no  business  to  do  thus  and  so." 

"That  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,  Willie;  you  have  the  wrong  idea, 
my  boy,  if  you  think  that  you  have  prayed  to-night." 

You  see  he  was  trying  to  get  over  it  by  saying,  "I  said  my  prayers 
to-night."  I  find  that  people  say  their  prayers  every  night,  just  to  ease 
their  conscience. 

"Willie,"  I  said,  "if  you  don't  forgive  your  sister,  you  will  not 
sleep  to-night.  Ask  her  to  forgive  you." 

He  didn't  want  to  do  that.  He  loves  the  country,  and  he  has  been 
talking  a  great  deal  about  the  time  when  he  can  go  into  the  country  and 
play  out-doors.  So  he  said: 

"Oh,  yes,  I  will  sleep  well  enough;  I  am  going  to  think  about  being 
out  there  in  the  country." 

That  is  the  way  that  we  are  trying  to  do;  we  are  trying  to  think  of 
something  else  to  get  rid  of  the  thought  of  these  sins,  but  we  can  not. 
I  said  nothing  more  to  him.  I  went  on  studying,  and  his  mother  came 
down  stairs.  But  soon  he  called  his  mother  and  said: 

"  Mother,  won't  you  please  go  up  and  ask  Emma  if  she  won't  for- 
give me?" 

Then  I  afterward  heard  him  murmuring  in  bed,  and  he  was  saying 
his  prayers.  And  he  said  to  me: 

"Papa,  you  were  right,  I  could  not  sleep,  and  I  can  not  tell  you  how 
happy  I  am  now." 
24 


368  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Don't  think,  my  friends,  that  there  is  any  peace  until  your  sins  are- 
put  away.  My  dear  friends,  the  gospel  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  the- 
gospel  of  peace. 

LOVE  CONQUERS  ALL  THINGS. — In  Brooklyn,  one  day,  I  met  a  young 
man  passing  down  the  streets.  At  the  time  the  war  broke  out  the  young 
man  was  engaged  to  be  married  to  a  young  lady  in  New  England,  but 
the  marriage  was  postponed.  He  was  very  fortunate  in  battle  after 
battle,  until  the  Battle  of  the  Wilderness  took  place,  just  before  the  war 
was  over.  The  young  lady  was  counting  the  days  at  the  end  of  which 
he  would  return.  She  waited  for  letters,  but  no  letters  came.  At  last 
she  received  one  addressed  in  a  strange  handwriting,  and  it  read  some- 
thing like  this  : 

"  There  has  been  another  terrible  battle.  I  have  been  unfortunate 
this  time  ;  /  have  lost  both  my  arms.  I  can  not  write  myself,  but  a  com- 
rade is  writing  this  letter  for  me.  I  write  to  tell  you  that  you  are  as 
dear  to  me  as  ever ;  but  I  shall  now  be  dependent  upon  other  people  for 
the  rest  of  my  days,  and  I  have  this  letter  written  to  release  you  from 
your  engagement." 

This  letter  was  never  answered.  By  the  next  train  she  went  clear 
down  to  the  scene  of  the  late  conflict,  and  sent  word  to  the  captain  what 
her  errand  was,  and  got  the  number  of  the  soldier's  cot.  She  went  along, 
the  line,  and  the  moment  her  eyes  fell  upon  that  number  she  went  to 
that  cot  and  threw  her  arms  round  that  young  man's  neck  and  kissed 
him. 

"I  will  never  give  you  up,"  she  said.  "These  hands  will  never  give 
you  up  ;  I  am  able  to  support  you  ;  I  will  take  care  of  you." 

My  friends,  you  are  not  able  to  take  care  of  yourselves.  The  law 
says  you  are  ruined,  but  Christ  says,  "I  will  take  care  of  you." 

MOTHER'S  LOVE. — I  knew  a  mother  who,  like  Christ,  gave  her  life 
for  love. 

When  the  Californian  gold  fever  broke  out,  a  man  went  there,  leaving 
his  wife  in  New  England  with  his  boy.  As  soon  as  he  got  on  and  was  suc- 
cessful he  was  to  send  for  them.  It  was  a  long  time  before  he  succeded, 
but  at  last  he  got  money  enough  to  send  for  them.  The  wife's  heart 
leaped  for  joy.  She  took  her  boy  to  New  York,  got  on  board  a  Pacific 
steamer,  and  sailed  away  to  San  Francisco.  They  had  not  been  long  at 
sea  before  the  cry  of  "  Fire  !  fire  !  "  rang  through  the  ship,  and  rapidly 
it  gained  on  them.  There  was  a  powder  magazine  on  board,  and  the 
captain  knew  the  moment  the  fire  reached  the  powder  every  man,, 
woman  and  child  must  perish.  They  got  out  the  life  boats,  but  they  were 
too  small  !  In  a  minute  they  were  overcrowded.  The  last  one  was  just. 


DWIOHT  L.  MOODY. 
THEO.  L.  C0YLER. 
SAM.  P.  JONES. 


0.  H.   SPCRGEON.  IBA  T>.  SANKEY. 

BOBEHT  COLLYER.  HENRY  W.  BEECHEK. 

BISHOP  H.   C.   POTTER.  T.  DE  WITT  TALMAGE. 


D WIGHT  L.  MOOD7.  369 

pushing  away,  when  the  mother  pleaded  with  them  to  take  her  and  her 
boy. 

"  No/'  they  said,  "we  have  got  as  many  as  we  can  hold." 

She  entreated  them  so  earnestly,  that  at  last  they  said  they  would 
take  one  more.  Do  you  think  she  leaped  into  that  boat  and  left  her 
boy  to  die  ?  No  !  She  seized  her  boy,  gave  him  one  last  hug,  kissed 
him,  and  dropped  him  over  into  the  boat. 

"  My  boy,  "  she  said,  "if  you  live  to  see  your  father,  tell  him  that  I 
died  in  your  place."  That  is  a  faint  type  of  what  Christ  has  done 
for  us. 

RELIGION"  is  LOVE  AND  SYMPATHY — I  want  to  tell  you  a  lesson 
taught  me  in  Chicago  a  few  years  ago.  In  the  months  of  July  and  August 
a  great  many  deaths  occurred  among  children,  you  all  know.  I  remem- 
ber I  attended  a  great  many  funerals;  sometimes  I  would  go  to  two  or 
three  funerals  a  day.  I  got  so  used  to  it  that  it  did  not  trouble  me  to 
see  a  mother  take  the  last  kiss  and  the  last  look  at  her  child,  and  see  the 
coffin-lid  closed.  I  got  accustomed  to  it,  as  in  the  war  we  got  accus- 
tomed to  the  great  battles,  and  to  see  the  wounded  and  the  dead  never 
troubled  us.  When  I  got  home  one  night  I  heard  that  one  of  my  Sun- 
day-school pupils  was  dead,  and  her  mother  wanted  me  to  come  to  the 
house.  I  went  to  the  poor  home  and  saw  the  father  drunk.  Adelaide 
had  been  brought  from  the  river.  The  mother  told  me  she  washed  for 
a  living,  the  father  earned  no  money,  and  poor  Adelaide's  work  was  to 
get  wood  for  the  fire.  She  had  gone  to  the  river  that  day  and  seen  a 
piece  floating  on  the  water,  had  stretched  out  for  it,  had  lost  her  balance, 
and  fallen  in.  The  poor  woman  was  very  much  distressed. 

"I  would  like  you  to  help  me,  Mr.  Moody,"  she  said,  "to  bury  my 
child.     I  have  no  lot,  I  have  no  money." 

Well,  I  took  the  measure  for  the  coffin  and  came  away.  I  had  my 
little  girl  with  me  and  she  said : 

"Papa,  suppose  we  were  very,  very  poor,  and  mamma  had  to  work 
for  a  living,  and  I  had  to  get  sticks  for  the  fire,  and  was  to  fall  into  the 
river,  would  you  be  very  sorry?" 

This  question  reached  my  heart. 

"Why,  my  child,  it  would  break  my  heart  to  lose  you,"  I  said,  and  I 
drew  her  to  my  bosom. 

"Papa,  do  you  feel  bad  for  that  mother?"  she  asked. 

This  word  woke  my  sympathy  for  the  woman,  and  I  started  and  went 
back  to  the  house,  and  prayed  that  the  Lord  might  bind  up  that 
wounded  heart.  When  the  day  came  for  the  funeral,  1  went  to  Grace- 
land.  I  had  always  thought  my  time  too  precious  to  go  out  there,  but 


370  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

I  went.  The  drunken  father  was  there  and  the  poor  mother.  I  bought 
a  lot,  the  grave  was  dug  and  the  child  laid  among  strangers.  There  was 
another  funeral  coming  up,  and  the  corpse  was  laid  near  the  grave  of 
little  Adelaide.  And  I  thought  how  I  would  feel  if  it  had  been  my  lit- 
tle girl  that  I  had  been  laying  there  among  strangers.  I  went  to  my 
Sabbath-school  thinking  this;  and  suggested  that  the  children  should 
contribute  and  buy  a  lot  in  which  we  might  bury  a  hundred  poor  little 
children.  We  soon  got  it,  and  the  papers  had  scarcely  been  made  out 
when  a  lady  came  and  said: 

"Mr.  Moody,  my  little  girl  died  this  morning;  let  me  bury  her  in 
the  lot  you  have  got  for  the  Sunday-school  children." 

The  request  was  granted,  and  she  asked  me  to  go  to  the  lot  and  say 
prayers  over  her  child.  I  went  to  the  grave — it  was  a  beautiful  day  in 
June — and  I  remember  asking  her  what  the  name  of  her  child  was. 
She  said  Emma.  That  was  the  name  of  my  little  girl,  and  I  thought 
"what  if  it  had  been  my  own  child!"  We  should  put  ourselves  in  the 
laces  of  others.  I  could  not  help  shedding  a  tear.  Another  woman 
came  shortly  after  and  wanted  to  put  another  one  into  the  grave.  I 
asked  his  name.  It  was  Willie,  and  it  happened  to  be  the  name  of  my 
little  boy.  The  first  two  laid  there  were  called  by  the  same  names  as 
my  two  children,  and  I  felt  sympathy  and  compassion  for  those  two 
women. 

If  you  want  to  get  into  sympathy,  put  yourself  into  a  man's  place. 
We  need  Christians  whose  hearts  are  full  of  love  and  sympathy.  If  we 
haven't  got  it,  pray  that  we  may  have  it,  so  that  we  may  be  able  to  reach 
those  men  and  women  that  need  kindly  words  and  kindly  actions  far 
more  than  sermons.  The  mistake  is  that  we  have  been  preaching  too 
much  and  sympathizing  and  loving  too  little.  The  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  a  gospel  of  love  and  deeds  and  not  of  words. 

CHRIST  WANTS  THE  SINNER  TO  COME  JCST  AS  HE  is. — I  have  read  of 
an  artist,  who  wanted  to  paint  a  picture  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  He 
searched  through  the  madhouses,  and  thepoorhouses,  and  the  prisons,  to 
find  a  man  wretched  enough  to  represent  the  prodigal,  but  he  could  not 
find  one.  One  day  he  was  walking  down  the  streets  and  met  a  man 
whom  he  thought  would  do.  He  told  the  poor  beggar  he  would  pay 
him  well,  if  he  came  to  his  room  and  sit  for  his  portrait.  The  beg- 
gar agreed  and  the  day  was  appointed  for  him  to  come.  The  day  came, 
and  a  man  put  in  his  appearance  at  the  artist's  room. 

"You  made  an  appointment  with  me,"  he  said,  when  he  was  shown 
into  the  studio. 

The  artist  looked  at  him. 


D WIGHT  L.  MOODY.  3?1 

"  I  never  saw  you  before/'  he  said.  "  You  can  not  have  an  appoint- 
ment with  me." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  man,  "I  agreed  to  meet  you  to-day,  at  ten  o'clock." 

"  You  must  be  mistaken  ;  it  must  have  been  some  other  artist ;  I  was 
to  see  a  beggar  here  at  this  hour." 

"  Well/'  says  the  beggar,  "I  am  he." 

."You?" 

"Yes." 

"  Why,  what  have  you  been  doing  ?" 

"  Well,  I  thought  I  would  dress  myself  up  a  bit,  before  I  got 
painted." 

"Then, "said  the  artist,  "I  do  not  want  you  ;  I  wanted  you  as  you 
were;  now,  you  are  of  no  use  to  me."  That  is  the  way  Christ  wants 
every  poor  sinner — just  as  he  is. 

CHRIST  WILL  BEAR  OUR  BURDENS. — I  like  to  think  of  Christ  as  a 
burden-bearer.  A  minister  was  one  day  moving  his  library  up  stairs. 
As  the  minister  was  going  up-stairs  with  his  load  of  books,  his  little  boy 
came  in  and  was  very  anxious  to  help  his  father.  So  his  father  just  told 
him  to  go  and  get  an  armful  and  take  them  up  stairs.  When  the  father 
came  back,  he  met  the  little  fellow  about  half  way  up  the  stairs,  tugging 
away  with  the  biggest  in  the  library.  He  couldn't  manage  to  carry  it  up. 
The  book  was  too  big.  So  he  sat  down  and  cried.  His  father  found  him, 
and  just  took  him  in  his  arms,  book  and  all,  and  carried  him  up  stairs. 
So  Christ  will  carry  you  and  all  your  burdens. 

LET  YOUR  LIGHT  SHINE. —  One  dark  night  a  friend  of  mine 
was  walking  along  one  of  the  streets  of  Chicago.  It  was  very  dark. 
Pretty  soon  he  met  a  man  with  a  lantern.  The  man  was  blind. 

"My  friend," he  said,  "  are  you  really  blind  ?" 

"Yes." 

"Then,  why  are  you  so  foolish  as  to  carry  a  lantern?" 

"  To  keep  people  from  stumbling  over  me  !" 

Christians,  let  us  learn  a  lesson  from  this.  Let  us  hold  up  our 
Christian  lights — hold  up  Christ.  Let  us  not  hide  our  lights  under  the 
bushel  and  let  the  world  stumble  over  us. 

Sinners,  don't  be  afraid  to  change  your  life.  Christians  be  zealous. 
Don't  rust  out. 

I  knew  a  professed  Christian,  whose  little  boy  was  converted,  and  he 
was  full  of  praise.  When  God  converts  boy  or  man,  his  heart  is  full  of 
joy — can't  help  praising.  His  father  was  a  professed  Christian,  I  say. 
The  boy  wondered  why  he  didn't  talk  about  Christ,  and  didn't  go  down 


372  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

to  the  special  meetings.     One  day,  as  the  father  was  reading  the  papers, 
the  boy  came  to  him  and  put  his  hand  on  his  shoulder,  and  said  : 

"Father, why  don't  you  praise  God?  Why  don't  you  sing  about 
Christ  ?  Why  don't  you  go  down  to  these  meetings  that  are  being  held?" 

The  father  opened  his  eyes,  and  looked  at  him,  and  said,  gruffly: 

"I  am  not  carried  away,  with  any  of  these  doctrines.  I  am 
established." 

A  few  days  after  they  were  getting  out  a  load  of  wood.  They  put 
it  on  the  cart.  The  father  and  the  boy  got  on  top  of  the  load,  and  tried 
to  get  the  horse  to  go.  They  used  the  whip,  but  the  horse  wouldn't 
move — he  was  established. 

THE  LITTLE  ORPHAN'S  PRAYER. — A  little  child,  whose  father  and 
mother  had  died,  was  taken  into  another  family.  The  first  night  she 
asked  if  she  could  pray,  as  she  used  to. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  the  new  mother. 

"  So  she  knelt  down,  and  prayed  as  her  first  mother  taught  her;  and 
when  that  was  ended  she  added  a  little  prayer  of  her  own:     "Oh  God, 
make  these  people  as  kind  to  me  as  father  and  mother  were."    Then  she 
paused  and  looked  up,  as  if  expecting  the  answer,  and  added: 
"Of  course  God  will." 

How  sweetly  simple  was  that  little  one's  faith;  she  expected  God  to 
"do,"  and,  of  course  she  got  her  request. 

FAITH  WILL  SAVE  You. — Suppose  I  should  meet  'a  person  to-night 
when  I  go  away  from  here — a  person  that  I  had  met  in  rags  every  day, 
and  should  see  him  all  dressed  up,  and  should  say  to  him,  "Halloa, 
beggar!" 

"Why,  Mr.  Moody,  I  ain't  no  beggar;  I  ain't." 

"Well,  you  were  last  night.  I  know  you.  You  asked  me  for  money." 

"True,  but  I  was  standing  here,  and  a  man  came  along  and  put  ten 
thousand  dollars  in  my  hand,  real  money,  and  I've  got  it  in  the  bank 
now." 

"How  do  you  know  you  stretched  out  the  right  hand  to  take  it?" 

"  Eight  hand!  What  do  I  care  which  hand!  I've  got  the  money,  I 
have." 

And  so  people  talk  about  the  right  kind  of  faith.  Any  kind  of  faith 
will  do  that  will  get  the  good.  There  would  be  no  trouble  about  peace 
and  happiness  if  men  had  faith  in  Christ. 

BELIEF. — Not  long  ago  a  man  said  to  me,  "  I  can  not  believe/' 

"Whom?"Iaskedo 

He  stammered,  and  said  again,  "  I  cannot  believe." 

I  said,  "Whom?" 


DWIGHT  L.  MOODY.  373 

"  Well/' he  said,  "  I  can't  believe." 

"  Whom?"  I  asked  again. 

At  last  he  said,  "I  can  not  believe  myself." 

"  Well,  you  don't  need  to.  You  do  not  need  to  put  any  confidence 
in  yourself.  The  less  you  believe  in  yourself  the  better.  But  if  you  tell 
me  you  can't  believe  God,  that  is  another  thing;  and  I  would  like  to  ask 
you  why?" 

WAITING  FOR  THE  SAVIOR. — A  family  in  a  southern  city  were 
stricken  down  with  yellow  fever.  It  was  raging  there,  and  there  were 
very  stringent  sanitary  rules.  The  moment  any  body  died,  a  cart  went 
around  and  took  the  coffin  away.  The  father  was  taken  sick  and  died 
and  was  buried,  and  the  mother  was  at  last  stricken  down.  The  neigh- 
bors were  afraid  of  the  plague,  and  none  dared  to  go  into  the  house. 
The  mother  had  a  little  son  and  was  anxious  about  her  boy,  and  afraid 
he  would  be  neglected  when  she  was  called  away,  so  she  called  the  little 
fellow  to  her  bedside,  and  said: 

"  My  boy,  I  am  going  to  leave  you,  but  Jesus  will  come  to  you  when 
I  am  gone." 

The  mother  died,  the  cart  came  along  and  she  was  laid  in  the  grave. 
The  neighbors  would  have  liked  to  take  the  boy,  but  were  afraid  of  the 
pestilence.  He  wandered  about,  and  finally  started  up  to  the  place 
where  they  had  laid  his  mother  and  sat  down  on  the  grave  and  wept 
himself  to  sleep.  Next  morning  he  awoke  and  realized  his  position — 
alone  and  hungry.  A  stranger  came  along  and  seeing  the  little  fellow 
pitting  on  the  ground,  asked  him  what  he  was  waiting  for. 

The  boy  remembered  what  his  mother  had  told  him  and  answered, 
"I  am  waiting  for  Jesus,"  and  told  him  the  whole  story. 

The  man's  heart  was  touched,  tears  trickled  down  his  cheeks,  and 
he  said: 

"Jesus  has  sent  me." 

"You  have  been  a  good  while  coming  sir,"  said  the  boy. 

He  was  provided  for.  So  it  is  with  us.  To  wait  for  results  we 
must  have  courage  and  patience  and  God  will  help  us. 

SHORT  OF  VIRTUE. — In  Chicago,  when  our  constitution  was  young,  a 
bill  was  passed  that  no  man  should  be  a  policeman  that  was  not  a  certain 
height — five  feet  six.  The  commissioners  advertised  for  men  to  come 
sound  and  be  examined,  and  they  must  bring  good  letters  of  recommen- 
dation with  them.  Now,  as  they  are  passing  from  one  man  to  another, 
examining  their  letters  and  trying  their  height,  suppose  there  are  two  of 
us  want  to  get  in,  and  I  say  to  my  friend,  "There  is  no  man  has  a  bet- 
ter chance  than  I  have;  I  have  got  letters  from  the  supreme  judge,  from 


374  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

the  mayor  and  leading  citizens  of  Chicago;  no  man  can  have  better  let- 
ters." He  says,  "Ah,  my  friend,  my  letters  are  as  good  as  yours/* 
Well,  the  chief  commissioner  says,  "Look  here,  Moody,  these  letters  are 
all  right,  but  you  must  be  up  to  the  standard ; "  so  he  measures  me,  and 
I  am  only  five  feet,  and  he  says,  "  You  are  half  a  foot  too  short. "  My 
friend  looks  down  on  me  and  says,  "  I  have  got  a  better  chance  than 
you/'  Well,  he  stands  up  and  is  measured,  and  is  only  one-tenth  of  an 
inch  short,  but  he  goes  with  me.  He  has  "  come  short."  I  admit  some 
men  have  come  shorter  than  others,  but  that  is  the  verdict  God  has 
brought  in — all  are  guilty. 

IF  I  ONLY  HAD. — >A  man  who  had  charge  of  a  swing-bridge  opened 
it  just  to  oblige  a  friend,  who  said  there  was  plenty  of  time  for  his  boat 
to  go  through  before  the  train  of  cars  came  along.  But  a  moment  after 
the  lightning-like  express  came  thundering  on  and  dashed  into  the  dark 
waters  below.  The  bridge-keeper,  whose  neglect  had  caused  the  dis- 
aster, lost  his  reason,  and  his  life  since  has  been  spent  in  a  mad-house. 
The  first  and  only  words  he  uttered  when  the  train  leaped  into  the  open 
chasm  were,  "If  I  only  had/'  and  he  has  gone  on  constantly  repeating 
the  vain  regret.  Ah!  that  will  be  the  cry  of  the  lost  in  another  world — 
"  If  I  only  had." 

LITTLE  THINGS. — It  is  amazing  what  little  things  sometimes  keep 
men  from  God.  One  man  came  to  me  and  told  me  that  his  business  was 
that  of  selling  a  kind  of  soap  which  was  advertised  to  do  remarkable 
work  in  taking  out  grease  spots. 

"  The  soap  will  do  all  that  is  claimed  for  it,"  said  he;  "  but  the  truth 
is,  it  rots  the  clothes;  and  if  I  become  a  Christian  I  must  give  up  my 
business;  and  I  can't  afford  to  do  it." 

And  so  in  his  case  it  was  soap  which  kept  him  out  of  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

SCEPTICS  ILLUSTRATED. — A  couple  of  commercial  travelers  went  to 
hear  a  minister  preach.  He  explained  that  men  don't  find  out  God; 
that  it  is  God  who  has  to  reveal  His  nature  to  man;  that  it  is  all  a  matter 
of  revelation;  that  God  reveals  Christ  to  man.  When  they  went  back 
to  the  hotel  they  began  to  talk  the  matter  over,  and  both  maintained 
that  they  could  not  believe  any  thing  except  they  could  reason  it  out. 
An  old  man  there  heard  the  conversation,  and  remarked: 

"I  heard  you  say  you  could  not  believe  any  thing  except  you  could 
reason  it  out.  Now,  when  I  was  coming  down  in  the  train  I  noticed  in 
the  field  some  geese  and  sheep  and  swine  and  cattle  eating  grass.  Can 
you  tell  me  by  what  process  that  grass  is  turned  into  hair,  and  bristles, 
and  feathers,  and  wool?" 


J) WIGHT  L.  MOODY.  375 

They  could  not. 

"Well,  do  you  believe  it  is  a  fact?" 

"Oh  yes,  we  can't  help  but  believe  that." 

"  Well,  then,  I  can't  help  but  believe  in  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  have  seen  men  who  have  been  reclaimed  and  reformed  through  it,  and 
who  are  now  living  happy,  when  before  they  were  outcasts  from  society. " 
The  two  commercial  men  were  silenced  by  that  old  man's  outspoken 
faith. 

How  EICH  AXD  Ho\v  POOE. — A  couple  of  friends  of  mine  in  the  war 
called  upon  one  of  our  great  Illinois  farmers,  to  get  him  to  give  some 
money  for  the  soldiers,  and  during  their  stay  he  took  them  up  to  the 
cupola  of  his  house  and  told  them  to  look  over  yonder,  just  as  far  as  their 
eyes  could  reach,  over  that  beautiful  rolling  prairie,  and  they  said, 
"That  is  very  nice."  Yes,  and  it  was  all  his.  Then  he  took  them  up 
to  another  cupola,  and  said,  "Look  at  that  farm,  and  that,  and  that;" 
these  were  farms  stocked,  improved,  fenced,  and  they  said,  "Those  are 
very  nice;"  and  then  he  showed  them  horses,  cattle,  and  sheep-yards, 
and  said,  "They  are  all  mine."  He  showed  them  the  town  where  he 
lived,  which  had  been  named  after  him,  a  great  hall,  and  building  lots, 
and  those  were  all  his,  and  he  said: 

"I  came  out  West  a  poor  boy,  without  a  farthing,  and  I  am  worth 
all  this;"  but  when  he  got  through  my  friend  said: 

"How  much  have  you  got  up  yonder?"  and  the  old  man's  counten- 
ance fell,  for  he  knew  very  well  what  that  meant.  ' '  What  have  you  got 
up  there — in  the  other  world?" 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  have  not  got  any  thing  there." 
"Why,"  said  my  friend,  "what  a  mistake!  A  man  of  your  intelli- 
gence and  forethought  and  judgment  to  amass  all  this  wealth;  and  now, 
that  you  are  drawing  near  to  your  grave,  you  will  have  to  leave  it  all. 
You  can  not  take  a  farthing  with  you,  but  you  must  die  a  beggar 
and  a  pauper;"  and  the  tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks  as  he  said, 

"  It  does  look  foolish." 

Only  a  few  months  after,  he  died,  as  he  had  lived,  and  his  property 
passed  to  others. 

"HOLD  THE  FORT,  FOB  I  AM  COMING."— When  General  Sherman 
went  through  Atlanta  toward  the  sea — through  the  Southern  States — he 
left  in  the  fort  in  theKenesaw  Mountains  a  little  handful  of  men  to  guard 
some  rations  that  he  brought  there.  And  General  Hood  got  into  the 
outer  rear  and  attacked  the  fort,  drove  the  men  in  from  the  outer  works 
into  the  inner  works,  and  fora  long  time  the  battle  raged  fearfully. 
Half  of  the  men  were  either  killed  or  wounded;  the  general  who  was  in 


376  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

command  was  wounded  seven  different  times;  and  when  they  were  about 
ready  to  run  up  the  white  flag  and  surrender  the  fort,  Sherman  got  within 
fifteen  miles,  and  through  the  signal  corps  on  the  mountain  he  sent  the 
message: 

"  Hold  the  fort;  I  am  coming.     W.  T.  Sherman." 

That  message  fired  up  their  hearts,  and  they  held  the  fort  till  rein- 
forcements came,  and  the  fort  did  not  go  into  the  hands  of  their  ene- 
mies. Our  friend,  Mr.  Bliss,  has  written  a  hymn  entitled  'Hold  the  Fort, 
for  I  Am  Coming,"  and  I'm  going  to  ask  Mr.  Sankey  to  sing  that  hymn. 
I  hope  there  will  be  a  thousand  young  converts  coming  into  our  ranks  to 
help  hold  the  fort.  Our  Savior  is  in  command,  and  He  is  coming. 
Let  us  take  up  the  chorus. 

Ho!  my  comrades,  see  the  signal 

Waving  in  the  sky! 
Reinforcements  now  appearing, 

Victory  is  nigh! 

Chorus—"  Hold  the  fort,  for  I  am  coming," 

Jesus  signals  still, 
Wave  the  answer  back  to  heaven, 
"  By  Thy  grace  we  will." 

See  the  mighty  hosts  advancing, 

Satan  leading  on; 
Mighty  men  around  us  falling, 

Courage  almost  gone. — Chorus. 

See  the  glorious  banner  waving, 

Hear  the  bugle  blow, 
In  our  Leader's  name  we'll  triumph 

Over  every  foe. — Chorus. 

Fierce  and  long  the  battle  rages, 

But  our  Help  is  near; 
Onward  comes  our  Great  Commander, 

Cheer,  my  comrades,  cheer! — Chorus. 

PARTING  WORDS. — "Another  story,"  said  Mr.  Moody,  "and  I  have 
done  to-day. 

"It  was  Ralph  Wallace  who  told  me  of  this  one:  A  certain  gentle- 
man used  to  be  a  member  of  the  Presbyterian  church.  He  is  a  good 
man,  but  his  heart  has  grown  old.  One  day  his  sweet,  little  boy  was 
taken  sick.  When  he  went  home,  his  wife  was  weeping,  and  she  said: 

" '  Our  boy  is  dying;  he  has  had  a  change  for  the  worse.  I  wish  you 
would  go  in  and  see  him,  John/ 

"  The  father  went  into  the  room  and  placed  his  hand  upon  the  brow 
of  his  dying  boy,  and  could  feel  the  cold,  damp  sweat  was  gathering  there; 
that  the  cold,  icy  hand  of  death  was  feeling  for  the  chords  of  life. 


HOLD  THE  FOKT. 


See  page  376. 


DWIGHT  L.  MOODY.  377 

'"Do  you  know,  my  boy,  that  you  are  dying?'  asked  the  weeping 
father. 

" '  Am  I,  father?    Is  this  death?   Do  you  really  think  I  am  dying? ' 

'"Yes,  my  son,  your  end  on  earth  is  near.' 

"  'And  will  I  be  with  Jesus  to-night,  father?' 

"  '  Yes,  you  will  be  with  the  Savior/ 

" '  Father,  don't  you  weep,  for  when  I  get  there  I  will  go  straight  to 
Jesus,  and  tell  Him  that  you  have  been  trying  all  my  life  to  lead  me  to 
Him.' 

"  God  has  given  me  two  little  children,"  said  Mr.  Moody,  "  and  ever 
since  I  can  remember  I  have  directed  them  to  Christ,  and  I  would  rather 
they  carried  this  message  to  Jesus — that  I  had  tried  all  my  life  to  lead 
them  to  Him — than  have  all  the  crowns  of  the  earth;  and  I  would 
rather  lead  them  to  Jesus  than  give  them  the  wealth  of  the  world.  I 
challenge  any  man  to  speak  of  heaven  without  speaking  of  children. 
Tor  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'" 


T.  DEWITT  TALMAGE. 

THE  GREAT  PREACHER,  A  SECOND  CALVIN. 


BIOGRAPHY   AND   REMINISCENCES. 

T.  DeWitt  Talmage,  D.  D.,  was  born  in  New  Jersey  in  1832,  the  youngest  of 
a  family  of  twelve  children.  His  parents  were  Christians,  and  their  good  training 
caused  the  conversion  of  DeWitt  when  eighteen  years  of  age.  He  received  his  lit- 
erary training  in  the  University  of  New  York,  and  afterward  graduated  from  the 
theological  school  at  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.  The  first  three  years  of  his  ministerial 
career  were  spent  in  Belleville,  N.  J.,  from  whence  he  was  called  to  Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
After  laboring  there  three  years,  he  went  to  Philadelphia,  where  he  remained  seven, 
years,  during  which  time  he  earned  a  high  place  among  the  preachers  of  that  city. 
His  congregations  were  large,  and  his  church  rapidly  increased  in  membership,  until 
it  became  widely  known  as  the  popular  church  of  the  city.  Many  large  and  impor- 
tant congregations  were  now  extending  calls  to  him.  He  accepted  a  call  from  the 
Central  Presbyterian  Church  of  Brooklyn,  then  in  a  state  of  decline,  in  preference  to 
others,  because  he  saw  in  Brooklyn  an  opportunity  to  build  up  a  free  church. 

At  the  end  of  a  year  and  a  half  the  old  edifice  could  no  longer  accommodate  the 
congregations,  and  a  tabernacle  was  built,  and  dedicated  in  September,  1870.  This- 
building,  which  originally  was  designed  to  seat  3,000  persons,  was  enlarged  a  few 
months  later.  Just  before  the  hour  of  service,  December  22,  1872,  the  tabernacle  was 
burned.  In  a  few  minutes  several  churches  were  offered  to  the  congregation  for 
occupancy  until  their  own  house  could  be  restored.  The  Academy  of  Music  was 
engaged  until  a  still  larger  structure  was  built  to  take  the  place  of  the  old.  The 
building  was  enlarged  until  it  accommodated  nearly  6,000  persons.  The  tabernacle 
was  crowded  at  every  service.  On  the  14th  of  October,  1889,  the  second  tabernacle 
was  burned  to  the  ground,  but  it  will  soon  be  rebuilt. 

When  I  said  to  the  great  preacher  that  the  Lord  seemed  to  deal  hardly  with  his 
church,  he  said:  "  No,  the  Lord  has  blessed  us  all  the  time." 

"  But  what  a  loss,"  I  said.     "  Three  hundred  thousand  (?)  dollars! " 

"  Oh,  no!  the  Lord  is  chastising  the  insurance  companies.  We  were  fully 
insured." 

Besides  the  regular  congregation,  Dr.  Talmage  preaches  to  several  millions 
through  the  press  of  the  United  States,  Europe  and  Australia,  which  publishes  his 
sermons  regularly. 

Dr.  Talmage  is  in  great  demand  as  a  lecturer,  but  makes  all  other  things  subordi- 
nate to  his  ministerial  work.  Personally,  he  is  one  of  the  most  modest  and  unassum- 
ing of  men.  His  appearance  is  not  at  all  clerical,  but  more  resembles  a  prosperous 

378 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAGE.  379 

business  man.    He  is  of  pleasant  address  and  sociable  disposition.    He  is  not  only  a 
preacher  among  preachers,  but  a  man  among  men. 

In  doctrine,  Talmage  is  absolutely  orthodox.  He  has  never 
changed  his  belief  like  Beecher,  nor  leaned  toward  the  Agnostics 
like  Heber  Newton.  His  sermons  abound  in  anecdotes  like  Moody's, 
Collyer's  and  Patton's.  Sometimes  his  stories  provoke  laughter 
but  they  always  convince.  He  always  looks  on  the  bright  side  of 
life  and  his  greatest  lecture  is  called  "  The  Bright  Side  of  Life." 
His  illustrations  are  startling. 

One  day,  to  illustrate  the  cost  of  salvation,  he  used  this  parable : 

"Mamma,"  said  a  little  child  to  her  mother,  when  she  was  being 
put  to  bed  at  night,  "  Mamma,  what  makes  your  hand  so  scarred 
and  twisted,  and  unlike  other  people's  hands  ? "  "  Well,"  said  the 
mother,  "my  child,  when  you  were  younger  than  you  are  now, 
years  ago,  one  night,  after  I  had  put  you  to  bed,  I  heard  a  cry,  a 
shriek,  upstairs.  I  came  up,  and  found  the  bed  was  on  fire  and  you 
were  on  fire ;  and  I  took  hold  of  you  and  I  tore  off  the  burning 
garments,  and  while  I  was  tearing  them  off  and  trying  to  get 
you  away  I  burned  my  hand,  and  it  has  been  scarred  and  twisted 
ever  since,  and  hardly  looks  any  more  like  a  hand ;  but  I  got  that, 
my  child,  in  trying  to  save  you" 

I  wish  I  could  show  you  the  burned  hand  of  Christ — burned  in 
plucking  you  out  of  the  fire;  burned  in  snatching  you  away  from 
the  flame.  Ay,  also  the  burned  foot,  and  the  burned  brow,  and  the 
burned  heart — burned  for  you.  By  His  stripes  we  are  healed. 

In  religion  we  have  said  that  Mr.  Talmage  is  orthodox.  Beecher 
often  called  him  an  old  Hunker.  He  never  strays  from  Calvinism. 
He  takes  no  stock  in  Darwin's  theories,  and  has  no  sympathy  with 
Beecher's  theory  (?)  that  everlasting  burning  does  not  overtake  the 
-dcked.  He  maintains,  with  Moody,  that  the  miracles  did  occur  as 
^presented,  and  has  no  patience  with  Heber  Newton,  who  accounts 
lor  them  through  natural  causes.  Still,  Mr.  Talmage  never  quar- 
rels with  the  theologians.  He  begs  them  all  to  work  for  Christian- 
ity. When  asked  about  opposing  some  new  theological  ideas  one 
day,  he  said : 

"  No,  I  haven't  time.  I  will  keep  on  the  main  track.  There  is 
nothing  gained  to  Christianity  by  wrangling.  You  remember  the 
story  of  the  two  brothers,"  he  said,  "who  went  out  to  take  an 
evening  walk,  and  one  of  them  looked  up  to  the  sky  and  said : 


380  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

" '  I  wish  I  had  a  pasture-field  as  large  as  the  night  heavens. 
And  the  other  brother  looked  up  into  the  sky,  and  said : 

"  *  I  wish  I  had  as  many  oxen  as  there  are  stars  in  the  sky.' 

"  *  Well,'  said  the  first,  '  how  would  you  feed  so  many  oxen  ? ' 

"  *  I  would  turn  them  into  your  pasture,'  replied  the  second. 

"  *  What !  whether  I  would  or  not  ? ' 

"  *  Yes,  whether  you  would  or  not.' 

"And  there  arose  a  quarrel;  and  when  the  quarrel  ended,  one 
had  slain  the  other." 

One  day,  speaking  of  joining  the  church,  Mr.  Talmage  said : 
"Every  Christian  should  anchor  to  a  church.  If  he  gets  into 
trouble,  the  church  will  take  care  of  him.  A  pious  captain  of  a 
Cunarder  was  riding  over  to  Philadelphia  on  the  cars.  A  young 
man  came  and  sat  down  by  him,  when  the  captain  said : 

" '  Going  over  to  Philadelphia  ? ' 

*' '  Yes,  I'm  going  there  to  live,'  replied  the  young  man. 

"  *  Have  you  letters  of  introduction  ? '  asked  the  old  captain. 

" '  Yes,'  said  the  young  man,  and  he  pulled  some  of  them  out. 

" '  Well,'  continued  the  old  sea-captain,  '  haven't  you  a  church 
certificate  ? ' 

" '  Oh,  yes,'  replied  the  young  man,  *  I  didn't  suppose  you  would 
want  to  look  at  that.' 

" '  Yes,'  said  the  sea-captain,  *  I  want  to  see  that.  As  soon  as 
you  get  to  Philadelphia,  present  that  to  some  Christian  church.  I 
am  an  old  sailor,  and  I  have  been  up  and  down  in  the  world,  and  it's 
my  rule,  as  soon  as  I  get  into  port,  to  fasten  my  ship,  fore  and  aft,  to 
the  wharf,  although  it  may  cost  a  little  wharfage,  rather  than  have 
my  ship  out  in  the  stream,  floating  hither  and  thither  with  the 
tide.'" 

Mr.  Talmage  is  always  talking  about  heaven.    One  day  he  said: 

"  Well,  my  friends,  heaven  comes  very  near  to-day.  It  is  only 
a  stream  that  divides  us — the  narrow  stream  of  death  ;  and  the 
voices  there  and  the  voices  here  seem  to  commingle,  and  we  join 
trumpets  and  hosannahs  and  hallelujahs,  and  the  chorus  of  the 
united  song  of  earth  and  heaven  is,  '  Home,  Sweet  Home.' 

"  And  this,"  he  continued,  "  reminds  me  of  a  war  story :  In  our 
last  dreadful  war,  the  Union  and  rebel  troops  were  encamped  on 
opposite  banks  of  the  Rappa  hannock,  and  one  morning  the  brass 
band  of  the  Northern  army  pJayed  the '  Star-Spangled  Banner,'  and 


I  NEVER  DID  LIKE  CODFISH. 


See  page  381. 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAGE.  381 

all  the  North  cheered:  Then,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Rappa- 
hannock,  the  brass  band  of  the  Confederates  played  '  My  Mary- 
land '  and  '  Dixie,'  and  then  all  the  Southern  troops  cheered  and 
cheered.  Eut  after  a  while  one  of  the  bands  struck  up  '  Home, 
Sweet  Home,'  and  the  band  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  took 
up  the  strain,  and  when  the  tune  was  done  the  Confederates  and 
the  Federals  all  together  united,  as  the  tears  rolled  down  their 
cheeks,  in  one  great  '  Huzza !  huzza ! ' 

"So  will  all  Christians  unite  in  heaven — the  'Home,  Sweet 
Home.' 

"Going  to  heaven!  what  a  sweet  saying!  "  exclaimed  Talmage. 

"A  Christian  man,"  he  continued,  "  was  dying  in  Canada.  His 
daughter  Nellie  sat  by  the  bedside.  It  was  Sunday  evening,  and 
the  bell  of  the  old  church  was  ringing,  calling  the  people  to  church. 
The  good  old  man,  in  his  dying  dream,  thought  that  he  was  on  the 
way  to  church,  as  he  used  to  be  when  he  went  in  the  sleigh  across 
the  river ;  and  as  the  evening  bell  struck  up,  in  his  dying  dream  he 
thought  it  was  the  call  to  church.  He  said  : 

" '  Hark,  children,  the  bells  are  ringing ;  we  shall  be  late;  we 
must  make  the  mare  step  out  quick ! '  He  shivered,  and  then  said  : 
1  Pull  the  buffalo-robe  up  closer,  my  lass !  It  is  cold  crossing  the 
river;  but  we  will  soon  be  there,  Nellie,  we  will  soon  be  there!' 
And  he  smiled  and  said,  '  Just  there  now.' 

"No  wonder  he  smiled.  The  good  old  man  had  got  to  church. 
Not  the  old  Canadian  church,  but  the  temple  in  the  skies.  Just 
across  the  river." 


TALMAGE'S  LECTTJEES. 

ELOQUENT,  LOGICAL,  ORTHODOX. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — Before  talking  about  agreeable  or  pleasant 
people,  I  will  say  something  about  disagreeable  people: 

Of  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to,  a  cross,  crabbed,  ill-contented  man 
is  the  most  unendurable,  because  the  most  inexcusable.  No  occasion, 
no  matter  how  trifling,  is  permitted  to  pass  without  eliciting  his  dissent, 
his  sneer,  or  his  growl.  His  good  and  patient  wife  never  yet  prepared 
a  dinner  that  he  liked.  One  day  she  prepares  a  dish  that  she  thinks 
will  particularly  please  him.  He  comes  in  the  front  door,  and  says. 

"Whew!  whew!  what  have  you  got  in  the  house?  Now,  my  dear, 
you  know  that  I  never  did  like  codfish."  [Laughter.] 


382  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Some  evening,  resolving  to  be  especially  gracious,  he  starts  with  his 
family  to  a  place  of  amusement.  He  scolds  the  most  of  the  way.  He 
can  not  afford  the  time  or  the  money,  and  he  does  not  believe  the  enter- 
tainment will  be  much,  after  all.  The  music  begins.  The  audience 
is  thrilled.  The  orchestra,  with  polished  instruments,  warble  and 
weep,  and  thunder  and  pray,  all  the  sweet  sounds  of  the  world  flowering 
upon  the  strings  of  the  bass  viol,  and  wreathing  the  flageolets,  and 
breathing  from  the  lips  of  the  cornet,  and  shaking  their  flower-bells 
upon  the  tinkling  tambourine. 

He  sits  motionless  and  disgusted.  He  goes  home,  saying:  ''Did  you 
see  that  fat  musician  that  got  so  red  blowing  that  French  horn?  He 
looked  like  a  stuffed  toad.  Did  you  ever  hear  such  a  voice  as  that  lady 
has?  Why,  it  was  a  perfect  squawk!  The  evening  was  wasted/' 

And  his  companion  says,  "Why,  my  dear!" 

"  There  you  needn't  tell  me — you  are  pleased  with  every  thing.  But 
never  ask  me  to  go  again!" 

He  goes  to  church.  Perhaps  the  sermon  is  didactic  and  argu- 
mentative. He  yawns.  He  gapes.  He  twists  himself  in  his  pew,  and 
pretends  he  is  asleep  and  says,  "  I  could  not  keep  awake.  Did  you  ever 
hear  any  thing  so  dead?  Can  these  dry  bones  live?" 

Next  Sabbath  he  enters  a  church  where  the  minister  is  much  given  to 
illustration.  He  is  still  more  displeased.  He  says,  "  How  dare  that 
man  bring  such  every-day  things  into  his  pulpit?  He  ought  to  have 
brought  his  illustrations  from  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  and  the  fir-tree, 
instead  of  the  hickory  and  sassafras.  He  ought  to  have  spoken  of  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Jordan,  and  not  of  the  Kennebec  and  Schuylkill. 
He  ought  to  have  mentioned  Mount  Gerizim  instead  of  the  Catskills. 
Why,  he  ought  to  be  disciplined.  Why,  it  is  ridiculous! " 

Perhaps,  afterward,  he  joins  the  church.  Then  the  church  will  have 
its  hands  full.  He  growls,  and  groans,  and  whines  all  the  way  up  toward 
the  gate  of  heaven.  He  wishes  that  the  choir  would  sing  differently, 
that  the  minister  would  preach  differently,  that  the  elders  would  pray 
differently.  In  the  morning,  he  said,  "The  church  was  as  cold  as  Green- 
land;" in  the  evening,  "it  was  hot  as  blazes."  They  painted  the  church; 
he  didn't  like  the  color.  They  carpeted  the  aisles;  he  didn't  like  the 
figure.  They  put  in  a  new  furnace;  he  didn't  like  the  patent.  He 
wriggles  and  squirms,  and  frets,  and  stews,  and  worries  himself.  He  is 
like  a  horse  that,  prancing  and  uneasy  to  the  bit,  worries  himself  into  a 
lather  of  foam,  while  the  horse  hitched  beside  him  just  pulls  straight 
ahead,  makes  no  fuss  and  comes  to  his  oats  in  peace.  Like  a  hedge- 
hog, he  is  all  quills.  [Laughter.]  Like  a  crab,  that  you  know  always 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAGE.  383 

goes  the  other  way,  and  moves  backward  in  order  to  go  forward,  and 
turns  in  four  directions  all  at  once,  and  the  first  you  know  of  his  where- 
abouts you  have  missed  him,  and  when  he  is  completely  lost  he  has  gone 
by  the  heel — so  that  the  first  thing  you  know  you  don't  know  any  thing 
— and  while  you  expected  to  catch  the  crab,  the  crab  catches  you. 
[Laughter.] 

So  some  men  are  crabbed — all  hard-shell,  and  obstinancy  and  oppo- 
sition. I  do  not  see  how  he  is  to  get  into  heaven,  unless  he  goes  in  back- 
ward, and  then  there  will  be  danger  that  at  the  gate  he  will  try  to  pick  a 
quarrel  with  St.  Peter.  [Laughter.]  Once  in,  I  fear  he  will  not  like 
the  music,  and  the  services  will  be  too  long,  and  that  he  will  spend  the 
first  two  or  three  years  in  trying  to  find  out  whether  the  wall  of  heaven 
is  exactly  plumb.  Let  us  stand  off  from  such  tendencies.  Listen  for 
sweet  notes  rather  than  for  discords,  picking  up  marigolds  and  harebells 
in  preference  to  thistles  and  coloquintida,  culturing  thyme  and  anemones 
rather  than  nightshade.  And  in  a  world  where  God  hath  put  exquisite 
tinge  upon  the  shells  washed  in  the  surf,  and  planted  a  paradise  of 
bloom  in  the  child's  cheek,  and  adorned  the  pillars  of  the  rock  by  hang- 
ing a  tapestry  of  morning  mist,  the  lark  saying,  "I  will  sing  soprano," 
and  the  cascade  replying,  "I  will  carry  the  bass/'  let  us  leave  it  to  the 
owl  to  hoot,  and  the  frog  to  croak,  and  the  beast  to  growl,  and  the 
grumbler  to  find  fault.  [Applause.] 

Now  we  will  talk  about  agreeable  people: 

Strange  that,  in  such  a  very  agreeable  world,  there  should  be  so 
many  disagreeable  people!  So  many  everywhere  but — here!  [Laughter.] 
I  see  by  your  looks,  my  friends,  that  none  of  you  belong  to  this  class. 
These  good-humored  husbands  before  me  are  all  what  they  ought  to  be, 
good-natured  as  a  May  morning;  and  when  the  wife  asks  for  a  little 
spending-money,  the  good  man  of  the  purse  says,  tc  All  right;  here's  my 
pocket-book.  My  dear,  take  as  much  as  you  want,  and  come  soon 
again."  [Laughter.]  These  wives  at  eveningtide  always  greet  their 
companions  home  with  a  smile,  and  say,  "My  dear,  your  slippers  are 
ready  and  the  muffins  warm.  Put  you  feet  up  on  this  ottoman.  Bless 
the  dear  man!"  [Laughter.]  These  brothers  always  prefer  the  com- 
panionship of  their  own  sisters  to  that  of  any  one  else's  sister,  and  take 
them  out  almost  every  evening  to  lectures  and  concerts.  And  I  suppose 
that  in  no  public  building  to-night  in  this  city,  or  in  any  other  city,  is 
there  a  more  mild,  affable,  congenial  and  agreeable  collection  of  people 
than  ourselves. 

The  world  has  a  great  many  delightful  people  who  are  easily  pleased. 
They  have  a  faculty  of  finding  out  that  which  is  attractive.  They  are 


384  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

like  a  bee  that  no  sooner  gets  out  of  the  hive  than  it  pitches  for  a  clover- 
top.  They  never  yet  walked  into  a  picture-gallery  but  they  were 
refreshed  and  thankful.  They  saw  some  exquisite  gem  that  kindled 
their  admiration.  There  was  some  pleasant  face  in  a  picture  that  for 
hours  kept  looking  over  their  shoulder. 

They  will  never  forget  how  in  one  of  them  a  vine  in  filial  affection, 
with  its  tender  arm  hugged  up  an  old  grandfather  of  a  tree  that  was 
about  to  feel  the  stiff  breeze. 

They  never  came  from  a  concert,  but  there  was  at  least  one  voice  that 
they  admired,  and  wondered  how  in  one  throat  God  could  have  placed 
.such  exhaustless  fountains  of  harmony. 

They  like  the  spring,  for  it  is  so  full  of  bird  and  bloom,  and,  like  a 
priestess,  stands  swinging  her  censer  of  perfume  before  God's  altar;  and 
the  summer  is  just  the  thing  for  them,  for  they  love  to  hear  the  sound  of 
mowing-machines,  and  battalions  of  thunderbolts  grounding  arms 
among  the  mountains;  and  autumn  is  their  exultation,  for  its  orchards 
are  golden  with  fruit,  and  the  forests  march  with  banners  dipped  in  sun- 
sets and  blood-red  with  the  conflicts  of  frost  and  storm.  [Applause.] 

And  they  praise  God  for  winter,  that  brings  the  shout  of  children, 
playing  blind-man's  buff,  with  handkerchief  they  can  see  through, 
around  a  blazing  fire,  and  the  snow  shower  that  makes  Parthenons  and 
St.  Mark's  Cathedrals  out  of  a  pigeon-coop,  and  puts  brighter  coronets 
than  the  Georges  ever  wore  on  the  brow  of  the  bramble,  and  turns  the 
wood-shed  into  a  "royal  tower"  filled  with  crown  jewels;  and  that  sends 
the  sleigh-riding  party,  in  buffalo  robes,  behind  smoking  steeds,  with 
two  straps  of  bells,  and  fire  in  the  eye,  and  snort  of  the  nostril,  and 
flaunt  of  the  mane,  impatient  of  the  sawing  of  the  twisted  bit  and  the 
reins  wound  around  the  hands  of  the  driver,  till,  coming  up  to  the 
other  gay  parties,  we  slacken  the  rein  and  crack  the  whip,  and  shout, 
"Go  'long,  Charley!"  and  dart  past  every  tiling  on  the  road,  and 
you  can  only  take  in  the  excited  roan  span  by  putting  your  foot  against 
the  dash-board,  and  lying  back  with  all  you  strength,  and  sawing  the 
bit,  while  the  jolly  hearts  in  the  back  seats  mingle  the  ha,  ha,  ha,  ha! 
with  the  jingle,  jingle,  jingle  of  the  sleigh-bells,  and  the  hostler  of  the 
hotel  grabs  the  bridle  of  your  horses,  while  you  go  in  to  warm  and  take  a 
glass  of — very  weak  lemonade!  [Laughter.] 

Now,  there  are  many  people  thus  pleased  with  all  seasons,  .,nd  com- 
plain not  in  any  circumstances.  If  you  are  a  merchant,  they  are  the 
men  whom  you  want  for  customers;  if  you  are  a  lawyer,  they  are  the 
men  you  want  for  clients  and  jurors;  if  you  are  a  physician,  they  are 
the  xuen  you  want  for  patients;  but  you  don't  often  get  them,  for  they 


T.  DE  WtTT  TALMAGE.  385 

cure  themselves  by  a  bottle  of  laughter,  taken  three  or  four  times  a 
day,  well  shaken  up.  Three  cheers  for  the  good-natured  man;  three 
groans  for  the  gouty  and  sour-tempered !  [Applause.] 

One  more  description  of  disagreeable  people  and  I  have  done: 

Scene  —  A  crisp  morning.  Carriage  with  spinning  wheels,  whose 
spokes  glisten  like  splinters  of  the  sun.  Roan  horse,  flecked  with  foam, 
bending  into  the  bit,  his  polished  feet  drumming  the  pavement  in 
challenge  of  any  horse  that  thinks  he  can  go  as  fast.  Two  boys  run- 
ning to  get  on  the  back  of  the  carriage.  One  of  them,  with  quick 
spring,  succeeds.  The  other  leaps,  but  fails  and  falls.  No  sooner  has 
he  struck  the  ground  than  he  shouts  to  the  driver  of  the  carriage,  "Cut 
behind !" 

Human  nature  the  same  in  boy  as  man.  All  running  to  gain  the 
vehicle  of  success.  Some  are  spry  and  gain  that  for  which  they  strive. 
Others  are  slow  and  tumble  down;  they  who  fall  crying  out  against 
those  who  mount,  " Cut  behind!" 

A  political  office  rolls  past.  A  multitude  spring  to  their  feet,  and 
the  race  is  on.  Only  one  of  all  the  number  reaches  that  for  which  he 
runs.  No  sooner  does  he  gain  the  prize,  and  begin  to  wipe  the  sweat 
from  his  brow,  and  think  how  grand  a  thing  it  is  to  ride  in  popular  pre- 
ferment, than  the  disappointed  candidates  cry  out,  "Incompetency! 
Stupidity!  Fraud!"  Now  let  the  newspapers  and  platforms  of  the 
country  "Cut  behind!" 

There  is  a  golden  chariot  of  wealth  rolling  down  the  street.  A  thou- 
sand people  are  trying  to  catch  it.  They  run.  They  jostle.  They 
tread  on  each  other.  Push,  and  pull,  and  tug!  Those  talk  most 
against  riches  who  can  not  get  them.  Clear  the  track  for  the  racers! 
One  of  the  thousand  reaches  the  golden  prize  and  mounts.  Forthwith 
the  air  is  full  of  cries:  "Got  it  by  fraud!  Shoddy!  Petroleum  aris- 
tocracy! His  father  was  a  rag-picker!  His  mother  was  a  washer- 
woman! I  knew  him  when  he  blackened  his  own  shoes!  Pitch  him  off 
the  back  part  of  the  golden  chariot!  Cut  behind!  Cut  behind!" 
[Laughter.] 

It  is  strange  that  there  should  be  any  rivalries  among  ministers  of 
religion,  when  there  is  so  much  room  for  all  to  work.  But  in  some 
things  they  are  much  like  other  people.  Like  all  other  classes  of  men, 
they  have  one  liver  apiece,  and  here  and  there  one  of  them  a  spleen.  In 
all  cases  the  epigastric  region  is  higher  up  than  the  hypogastric,  save  in 
the  act  of  turning  a  somersault.  Like  others,  they  eat  three  times  a  day 
when  they  can  get  any  thing  to  eat.  Besides  this,  it  sometimes  happens 
that  we  find  them  racing  for  some  professional  chair  or  pulpit.  They 


386  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

run  well — neck  and  neck — while  churches  look  on  and  wonder  whether 
it  will  be  "Dexter"  or  the  "American  Girl."  Bowels  plunge  deep, 
and  fierce  is  the  cry,  "  Go  'long!  Go  'long! "  The  privilege  of  preach- 
ing the  gospel  to  the  poor  on  five  thousand  dollars  a  year  is  enough  to 
make  a  tight  race  anywhere.  But  only  one  mounts  the  coveted  place; 
and  forthwith  the  cry  goes  up  in  conventions  and  synods:  "Unfit 
for  the  place!  Can't  preach!  Unsound  in  the  faith!  Now  is  your 
chance,  oh,  conferences  and  presbyteries,  to  cut  behind!"  [Laughter.] 

A  fair  women  passes.  We  all  admire  beauty.  He  that  says  he  don't, 
lies.  A  canting  man,  who  told  me  he  had  no  admiration  for  any  thing 
earthly,  used,  instead  of  listening  to  the  sermon,  to  keep  squinting  over 
toward  the  pew  where  sat  Squire  Brown's  daughter.  Whether  God 
plants  a  rose  in  parterre  or  human  cheek,  we  must  admire  it,  whether 
we  will  or  not.  While  we  are  deciding  whether  we  had  better  take  that 
dahlia,  the  dahlia  takes  us.  A  star  does  not  ask  the  astronomer  to  admire 
it,  but  just  winks  at  him,  and  he  surrenders,  with  all  his  telescopes. 
This  fair  woman  in  society  has  many  satellites.  The  boys  all  run  for  this 
prize.  One  of  them,  not  having  read  enough  novels  to  learn  that  ugli- 
ness is  more  desirable  than  beauty,  wins  her.  The  cry  is  up  :  "She 
paints !  Looks  well ;  but  she  knows  it.  Good  shape  ;  but  I  wonder 
what  is  the  price  of  cotton  !  Won't  she  make  him  stand  around  !  Prac- 
ticality worth  more  than  black  eyes  !  Fool  to  marry  a  virago  ! " 

In  many  eyes  success  is  a  crime.  "I  do  not  like  3rou,"  said  the  snow- 
flal  e  to  the  snowbird.  "Why?"  said  the  snow-bird.  "Because,  "said 
the  snowflake,  "You  are  going  up  and  I  going  down  ! "  [Applause.] 

We  have  to  state  that  the  man  in  the  carriage  on  the  crisp  morning, 
though  he  had  a  long  lash-whip,  with  which  he  could  have  made  the 
climbing  boy  yell  most  lustily,  did  not  "cut  behind."  He  was  an  old 
map  ;  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth  a  smile,  which  was  always  as  ready  to 
play  as  a  kitten  that  watches  for  some  one  with  a  string  to  offer  the 
slightest  inducement.  He  heard  the  shout  in  the  rear,  and  said: 
"  Good-morning,  my  son.  That  is  right ;  climb  over  and  sit  by  me. 
Here  are  the  reins  ;  take  hold  and  drive." 

Thank  God  there  are  so  many  in  the  world  that  never  "cut  behind," 
but  are  ready  to  give  a  fellow  a  ride  whenever  he  wants  it.  Here  is  a 
young  man,  clerk  in  a  store.  He  has  small  wages,  and  a  mother  to  take 
care  of.  For  ten  years  he  struggles  to  get  into  a  higher  place.  The 
first  of  January  comes,  and  the  head  of  the  commercial  house  looks 
round  and  says  :  "Trying  to  get  up,  are  you? "  And  by  the  time  three 
more  years  have  passed  the  boy  sits  right  beside  the  old  man,  who  hands 
over  the  reins,  and  says,  "Drive!"  Jonathan  Goodhue  was  a  boy 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAGE.  387 

behind  the  counter;  but  his  employer  gave  him  a  ride,  and  London,  Can- 
ton and  Calcutta  heard  the  scratch  of  his  pen.  Lenox,  Grinnell,  and 
the  Aspinwalls  carried  many  young  men  a  mile  on  the  high  road  of  pros- 
perity. 

There  are  hundreds  of  people  whose  chief  joy  is  to  help  others  on. 
Now  it  is  a  smile,  now  a  good  word,  now  ten  dollars.  May  such  a  kind 
man  always  have  a  carriage  to  ride  in  and  a  horse  not  too  skittish  !  As 
he  goes  down  the  hill  of  life,  may  the  breeching-strap  be  strong  enough 
to  hold  back  the  load  ! 

When  he  has  ridden  to  the  end  of  the  earthly  road,  he  will  have 
plenty  of  friends  to  help  him  unhitch  and  assist  him  out  of  the  carriage. 
On  that  cool  night  it  will  be  pleasant  to  hang  up  the  whip  with  which  he 
drove  the  enterprises  of  a  lifetime,  and  feel  that  with  it  he  never  "cut 
behind "  at  those  who  were  struggling.  [Applause.] 


TALMAGE'S  GREAT  TEMPERANCE  LECTURE. 

Joseph's  brethren  dipped  their  brother's  coat  in  goat's  blood,  and 
then  brought  the  dabbled  garment  to  their  father,  cheating  him  with  the 
idea  that  a  ferocious  animal  had  slain  him,  and  thus  hiding  their  infa- 
mous behavior. 

But  there  is  no  deception  about  that  which  we  hold  up  to  your  obser- 
vation to-night  (or  to-day).  A  monster  such  as  never  ranged  African 
thicket  or  Hindostan  jungle  hath  tracked  this  land,  and  with  bloody 
maw  hath  strewn  the  continent  with  the  mangled  carcasses  of  whole? 
generations;  and  there  are  tens  of  thousands  of  fathers  and  mothers  who- 
could  hold  up  the  garment  of  their  slain  boy,  truthfully  exclaiming:  "It 
is  my  son's  coat;  an  evil  beast  hath  devoured  him." 

There  has,  in  all  ages  and  climes,  been  a  tendency  to  the  improper 
use  of  stimulants.  Noah,  as  if  disgusted  with  the  prevalence  of  water 
in  his  time,  [laughter]  took  to  strong  drink.  By  this  vice,  Alexander 
the  Conqueror  was  conquered.  The  Romans  at  their  feasts  fell  off  their 
seats  with  intoxication.  Four  hundred  millions  of  our  race  are  opium 
eaters.  India,  Turkey  and  China  have  groaned,  with  the  desolation;  and 
by  it  have  been  quenched  such  lights  as  Halley  and  De  Quincey.  One 
hundred  millions  are  the  victims  of  the  betel-nut,  which  has  specially 
blasted  the  East  Indies.  Three  hundred  millions  chew  hashish,  and 
Persia,  Brazil  and  Africa  suffer  the  delirium.  The  Tartars  employ 
murowa;  the  Mexicans,  the  agave;  the  people  at  Guarapo,  an  intoxicat- 
ing quality  taken  from  sugar-cane;  while  a  great  multitude,  that  no  man 
can  number,  are  disciples  of  alcohol.  To  it  they  bow.  Under  it  they 


388  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

are  trampled.  In  its  trenches  they  fall.  On  its  ghastly  holocaust  they 
fcurn. 

Could  the  muster-roll  of  this  great  army  be  called,  and  they  could 
•come  up  from  the  dead,  what  eye  could  endure  the  reeking,  festering 
putrefaction  and  beastliness?  What  heart  could  endure  the  groan  of 
•agony? 

Drunkenness:  does  it  not  jingle  the  burglar's  key?  Does  it  not  whet 
the  assassin's  knife?  Does  it  not  cock  the  highwayman's  pistol?  Does 
it  not  wave  the  incendiary's  torch?  Has  it  not  sent  the  physician  reel- 
ing into  the  sick-room;  and  the  minister  with  his  tongue  thick  into  the 
pulpit?  Did  not  an  exquisite  poet,  from  the  very  top  of  his  fame,  fall 
&  gibbering  sot,  into  the  gutter,  on  his  way  to  be  married  to  one  of  the 
fairest  daughters  of  New  England,  and  at  the  very  hour  the  bride  was 
decking  herself  for  the  altar;  and  did  he  not  die  of  delirium  tremens, 
almost  unattended,  in  a  hospital? 

Tamerlane  asked  for  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  skulls  with 
which  to  build  a  pyramind  to  his  own  honor.  He  got  the  skulls,  and 
built  the  pyramid.  But  if  the  bones  of  all  those  who  have  fallen  as  a 
prey  to  dissipation  could  be  piled  up,  it  would  make  a  vaster  pyramid. 

Who  will  gird  himself  for  the  journey,  and  try  with  me  to  scale  this 
mountain  of  the  dead — going  up  miles  high  on  human  carcasses,  to  find 
still  other  peaks  far  above,  mountain  above  mountain,  white  with  the 
bleached  bones  of  drunkards? 

We  have  too  much  law. 

The  Sabbath  has  been  sacrificed  to  the  rum  traffic.  To  many  of  our 
people,  the  best  day  of  the  week  is  the  worst.  Bakers  must  keep  their 
shops  closed  on  the  Sabbath.  It  is  dangerous  to  have  loaves  of  bread 
going  out  on  Sunday.  The  shoe  store  is  closed;  severe  penalty  will 
attack  the  man  who  sells  boots  on  the  Sabbath.  But  down  with  the 
window-shutters  of  the  grog-shops!  Our  laws  shall  confer  particular 
honor  upon  the  rum-traffickers.  All  other  trades  must  stand  aside  for 
these.  Let  our  citizens  who  have  disgraced  themselves  by  trading  in 
-clothing  and  hosiery  and  hardware  and  lumber  and  coal,  take  off  their 
hats  to  the  rum-seller,  elected  to  particular  honor.  It  is  unsafe  for  any 
other  class  of  men  to  be  allowed  license  for  Sunday  work.  But  swing 
out  your  signs,  on  ye  traffickers  in  the  peace  of  families,  and  in  the  souls 
of  immortal  men!  Let  the  corks  fly  and  the  beer  foam  and  the  rum  go 
tearing  down  the  half-consumed  throat  of  the  inebriate.  God  does  not 
see!  Does  He?  Judgment  will  never  come!  Will  it?  [Voices  "  Yes! 
yes!"] 

People  say,  "Let  us  have  more  law  to  correct  this  evil."  We  have 
more  law  now  than  we  can  execute.  In  what  city  is  there  a  mayoralty 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAOE.  b89 

that  dare  do  it?  The  fact  is,  that  there  is  no  advantage  in  having  the 
law  higher  than  public  opinion.  What  would  be  the  use  of  the 
Maine  law  in  New  York?  Neal  Dow,  the  mayor  of  Portland,  came  out 
with  a  posse  and  threw  the  rum  of  the  city  into  the  street.  But  I  do 
not  believe  that  there  are  three  mayors  in  the  United  States  with  his 
courage  or  nobility  of  spirit. 

I  do  not  know  but  that  God  is  determined  to  let  drunkenness  triumph, 
and  the  husbands  and  sons  of  thousands  of  our  best  families  be  destroyed 
by  this  vice,  in  order  that  our  people,  amazed  and  indignant,  may  rise 
up  and  demand  the  extermination  of  this  municipal  crime.  There  is  :> 
way  of  driving  down  the  hoops  of  a  barrel  so  tight  that  they  break. 

We  can't  regulate  intemperance. 

We  are  in  this  country,  at  this  time,  trying  to  regulate  this  evil  by  a 
tax  on  whisky.  You  might  as  well  try  to  regulate  the  Asiatic  cholera, 
or  the  smallpox,  by  taxation.  The  men  who  distil  liquors  are,  for  the 
most  part,  unscrupulous;  and  the  higher  the  tax,  the  more  inducement 
to  illicit  distillation.  New  York  produces  forty  thousand  gallons  of 
whisky  every  twenty-four  hours;  and  the  most  of  it  escapes  the  tax.  The 
most  vigilant  officials  fail  to  discover  the  cellars  and  vaults  and  sheds 
where  this  work  is  done. 

Oh,  the  folly  of  trying  to  restrain  an  evil  by  government  tariffs!  If 
every  gallon  of  whisky  made,  if  every  flask  of  wine  produced,  should  be 
taxed  a  thousand  dollars,  it  would  not  be  enough  to  pay  for  the  tears  it 
has  wrung  out  of  the  eyes  of  widows  and  orphans,  nor  for  the  blood  it  has 
dashed  on  the  altars  of  the  Christian  church,  nor  for  the  catastrophe  of 
the  millions  it  has  destroyed  forever. 

Oh!  we  are  a  Christian  people!  From  Boston  a  ship  sailed  for  Africa, 
with  three  missionaries  and  twenty-two  thousand  gallons  of  New  Eng- 
land rum  on  board.  Which  will  have  the  most  effect;  the  missionaries, 
or  the  rum? 

Shall  we  try  the  power  of  the  pledge?  There  are  thousands  of  men 
who  have  been  saved  by  putting  their  names  to  such  a  document.  I 
know  it  is  laughed  at;  but  there  are  men  who,  having  once  promised  a 
thing,  doit.  "Some  have  broken  the  pledge."  Yes;  they  were  liars. 
But  all  men  are  not  liars.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  the  duty  of  all  persons 
to  make  such  signature;  but  I  do  say  that  it  will  be  the  salvation  of  many 
of  you. 

The  glorious  work  of  Theobald  Matthew  can  never  be  estimated.  At 
his  hand  four  millions  of  people  took  the  pledge,  including  eight  prelates 
and  seven  hundred  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  clergy.  A  multitude  of  them 
were  faithful. 


390  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Dr.  Justin  Edwards  said  that  ten  thousand  drunkards  had  been  per- 
manently reformed  in  five  years. 

Through  the  great  Washingtonian  movement  in  Ohio,  sixty  thousand 
took  the  pledge;  in  Pennsylvania,  twenty-nine  thousand;  in  Kentucky, 
thirty  thousand,  and  multitudes  in  all  parts  of  the  land.  Many  of  these 
had  been  habitual  drunkards.  One  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  them, 
it  is  estimated,  were  permanently  reclaimed.  Two  of  these  men  became 
foreign  ministers,  one  a  governor  of  a  State  several  were  sent  to  Congress. 
Hartford  reported  six  hundred  reformed  drunkards;  Norwich,  seventy- 
two;  Fairfield,  fifty;  Sheffield,  seventy-five.  All  over  the  land  reformed 
men  were  received  back  into  the  churches  that  they  had  before  dis- 
graced; and  households  were  re-established.  All  up  and  down  the  land 
there  were  gratulations  and  praise  to  God. 

The  pledge  signed,  to  thousands  has  been  the  proclamation  of 
emancipation.  [Applause.] 

There  is  no  cure  but  prohibition. 

I  think  that  we  are  coming  at  last  to  treat  inebriation  as  it  ought  to- 
be  treated,  namely,  as  an  awful  disease,  self-inflicted,  to  be  sure,  but 
nevertheless  a  disease.  Once  fastened  upon  a  man,  sermons  will  not  cure 
him;  temperance  lectures  will  not  eradicate  the  taste;  religious  tracts 
will  not  arrest  it;  the  gospel  of  Christ  will  not  arrest  it.  Once  under 
the  power  of  this  awful  thirst,  the  man  is  bound  to  go  on;  and  if  the- 
foaming  glass  were  on  the  other  side  of  perdition,  he  would  wade  through 
the  fires  of  hell  to  get  it.  A  young  man  in  prison  had  such  a  strong- 
thirst  for  intoxicating  liquors,  that  he  cut  off  his  hand  at  the  wrist, 
called  for  a  bowl  of  brandy  in  order  to  stop  the  bleeding,  thrust  his 
wrist  into  the  bowl  and  then  drank  the  contents. 

Stand  not,  when  the  thirst  is  on  him,  between  a  man  and  his  cups! 
Clear  the  track  for  him!  Away  with  the  children;  he  would  tread  their 
life  out!  Away  with  the  wife;  he  would  dash  her  to  death!  Away  with 
the  Cross;  he  would  run  it  down!  Away  with  the  Bible;  he  would  tear 
it  up  for  the  winds!  Away  with  heaven;  he  considers  it  worthless  as  a 
straw!  "Give  me  the  drink!  Give  it  to  me!  Though  hands  of  blood 
pass  up  the  bowl,  and  the  soul  trembles  over  the  pit, — the  drink!  give  it 
to  me!  Though  it  be  pale  with  tears;  though  the  froth  of  everlasting- 
anguish  float  in  the  foam;  give  it  to  me!  I  drink  to  my  wife's  woe; 
to  my  children's  rags;  to  my  eternal  banishment  from  God  and  hope 
and  heaven!  Give  it  to  me!  the  drink!" 

The  rum  fiend  is  coming  into  your  homes. 

Oh,  how  this  rum  fiend  would  like  to  go  and  hangup  a  skeleton  in 
your  beautiful  house,  so  that  whe»  you  opened  the  front  door  to  go  in 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAGK  391 

you  would  see  it  in  the  hall;  and  when  you  sit  at  your  table  you 
would  see  it  hanging  from  the  wall;  and  when  you  open  your  bed- 
room you  would  find  it  stretched  upon  your  pillow;  and  waking  at  night 
you  would  feel  its  cold  hand  passing  over  your  face  and  pinching  at 
your  heart ! 

There  is  no  home  so  beautiful  but  it  may  be  devastated  by  the  awful 
curse.  It  throws  its  jargon  into  the  sweetest  harmony.  What  was  it 
that  silenced  Sheridan's  voice  and  shattered  the  golden  scepter  with 
which  he  swayed  parliaments  and  courts?  What  foul  sprite  turned  the 
sweet  rhythm  of  Robert  Burns  into  a  tuneless  ballad?  What  brought 
down  the  majestic  form  of  one  who  awed  the  American  senate  with  his 
eloquence,  and  after  a  while  carried  him  home  dead  drunk  from  the 
office  of  secretary  of  state?  What  was  it  that  crippled  the  noble 
spirit  of  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  late  war,  until  the  other  night,  in  a 
drunken  fit,  he  reeled  from  the  deck  of  a  Western  steamer  and  was 
drowned  I  There  was  one  whose  voice  we  all  loved  vo  hear.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  classic  orators  of  the  century.  People  wondered  why  a 
man  of  so  pure  a  heart  and  so  excellent  a  life  should  h*\va  such  a  sad 
countenance  always.  They  knew  not  that  his  wife  was  a  rot. 

"Woe  to  him  that  giveth  his  neighbor  drink! "  If  this  curse  was  pro- 
claimed about  the  comparatively  harmless  drinks  of  olden  times,  what 
condemnation  must  rest  upon  those  who  tempt  their  neighbors  when 
intoxicating  liquor  means  copperas,  nux  vomica,  logwood,  opium, 
sulphuric  acid,  vitriol,  turpentine  and  strychnine!  "  Pure  liquors;" 
pure  destruction!  Nearly  all  the  genuine  champagne  made  is  taker  *  v 
the  courts  of  Europe.  What  we  get  is  horrible  swill ! 

Women!  we  call  upon  you  to  help  us! 

I  call  upon  woman  for  her  influence  in  the  matter.  Many  a  ma» 
who  had  reformed  and  resolved  on  a  life  of  sobriety,  has  been  pitched 
off  into  old  habits  by  the  delicate  hand  of  her  whom  he  was  anxious  tc 
please. 

Bishop  Potter  says  that  a  young  man,  who  had  been  reformed,  sat  a,( 
a  table,  and  when  the  wine  was  passed  to  him  refused  to  take  it.  A 
lady  sitting  at  his  side  said,  "  Certainly  you  will  not  refuse  to  take  a 
glass  with  me?"  Again  he  refused.  But  when  she  had  derided  him 
for  lack  of  manliness  he  took  the  glass  and  drank  it.  He  took  another 
and  another;  and  putting  his'fist  hard  down  on  the  table,  said,  "Now  I 
drink  until  I  die."  In  a  few  months  his  ruin  was  consummated. 

I  call  upon  those  who  are  guilty  of  these  indulgences  to  quit  the 
path  of  death.  Oh,  what  a  change  it  would  make  in  your  home!  Do 
you  see  how  everything  there  is  being  desolated  !  Would  you  not  like 


392  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

to  bring  back  joy  to  your  wife's  heart,  and  have  your  children  come  out 
to  meet  you  with  as  much  confidence  as  once  they  showed?  "Would  you 
not  like  to  rekindle  the  home  lights  that  long  ago  were  extinguished? 
It  is  not  too  late  to  change.  It  may  not  entirely  obliterate  from  your 
soul  the  memory  of  wasted  years  and  a  ruined  reputation,  nor  smooth 
out  from  anxious  brows  the  wrinkles  which  trouble  has  plowed.  It  may 
not  call  back  unkind  words  uttered  or  rough  deeds  done — for,  perhaps, 
in  those  awful  moments  you  struck  her  !  It  may  not  take  from  your 
memory  the  bitter  thoughts  connected  with  some  little  grave;  but  it  is 
not  too  late  to  save  yourself  and  secure  for  God  and  your  family  the 
remainder  of  your  fast-going  life. 

But  perhaps  you  have  not  utterly  gone  astray.  I  may  address  one 
who  may  not  have  quite  made  up  his  mind.  Let  your  better  nature 
speak  out.  You  take  one  side  or  the  other  in  the  war  against  drunken- 
ness. Have  you  the  courage  to  put  your  foot  down  right,  and  say 
to  your  companions  and  friends:  "I  will  never  drink  intoxicating 
liquor  in  all  my  life,  nor  will  I  countenance  the  habit  in  others?  "  Have 
nothing  to  do  with  strong  drink.  It  has  turned  the  earth  into  a 
place  of  skulls,  and  has  stood  opening  the  gate  to  a  lost  world  to  let  in 
its  victims,  until  now  the  door  swings  no  more  upon  its  hinges,  but  day 
and  night  stands  wide  open  to  let  in  the  agonized  procession  of  doomed 
men. 

Do  I  address  one  whose  regular  work  in  life  is  to  administer  to 
this  appetite?  I  beg  you  get  out  of  the  business.  If  a  woe  be 
pronounced  upon  the  man  who  gives  his  neighbor  drink,  how  many 
woes  must  be  hanging  over  the  man  who  does  this  every  day,  and  every 
hour  of  the  day! 

A  philanthropist  going  up  to  the  counter  of  a  grogshop,  as  the 
proprietor  was  mixing  a  drink  for  a  toper  standing  at  the  counter,  said 
to  the  proprietor,  "Can  you  tell  me  what  your  business  is  good  for?" 
The  proprietor,  with  an  infernal  laugh,  said,  "It  fattens  graveyards!'* 

God  knows  better  than  you  do  yourself  the  number  of  drinks  you 
have  poured  out.  You  keep  a  list;  but  a  more  accurate  list  has  been 
kept  than  yours.  You  may  call  it  Burgundy,  Bourbon,  Cognac,  Heid- 
seck,  Hock;  God  calls  it  strong  drink.  Whether  you  sell  it  in  low 
oyster  cellar  or  behind  the  polished  counter  of  first-class  hotel,  thc. 
divine  curse  is  upon  you.  I  tell  you  plainly  that  you  will  meet  you! 
customers  one  day  when  there  will  be  no  counter  between  you.  When 
your  work  is  done  on  earth,  and  you  enter  the  reward  of  your  business- 
all  the  souls  of  the  men  whom  you  have  destroyed  will  crowd  around 
sou  and  pour  th^ir  bitterness  into  your  cup.  They  will  show  you  their 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAGE.  093- 

wounds  and  say,  "  You  made  them;"  and  point  to  their  unquenchable 
thirst,  and  say,  "You  kindled  it;"  and  rattle  their  chain,  and  sa\, 
"You  forged  it."  Then  their  united  groans  will  smite  your  ears,  and 
with  the  hands,  out  of  which  you  once  picked  the  sixpences  and  the  dimes,, 
they  will  push  you  off  the  verge  of  great  precipices;  while,  rolling  up 
from  beneath,  and  breaking  among  the  crags  of  death,  will  thunder: 
"  Woe  to  him  that  giveth  his  neighbor  drink  !" 


TALMAGE'S  INTERESTING  THOUGHTS. 

PROTESTANTISM. —  The  term  Protestantism  reminds  us  of  the  prompt 
answer  which  was  given  by  Wilkes,  who  was  asked  by  a  Romanist, 
"Where  was  your  church  before  Luther?"  "Where  was  your  face 
before  you  washed  it  this  morning?  "  replied  Wilkes. 

INCONSISTENCY. —  A  poor  boy  slyly  takes  from  the  basket  of  a  mar- 
ket woman  a  choke  pear  —  saving  some  one  else  from  the  cholera  —  and 
you  smother  him  in  the  horrible  atmosphere  of  Raymond  street  jail,  or 
New  York  Tombs,  while  his  cousin,  who  has  been  skilful  enough  to 
steal  $50,000  from  the  city,  you  will  make  a  candidate  for  the  New 
York  Legislature. 

SIN. —  The  Egyptian  queen  was  a  fool  when  she  dissolved  a  priceless 
pearl  in  a  single  cup  of  pleasure!  The  Indian  chief  was  a  fool  when 
he,  underrating  the  momentum  of  the  current,  and  thinking  he  could 
stem  the  mighty  flood,  launched  his  canoe  in  the  rapids  and  went  over 
Niagara!  He  is  a  fool  who  sports  with  a  deadly  serpent!  A  man  is  a, 
fool  who,  unarmed  and  alone,  springs  to  combat  with  a  lion!  But  sin 
is  stronger  than  a  lion,  and  more  venomous  than  a  serpent!  The 
momentum  of  its  destroying  flood  is  mightier  than  Niagara's,  and,  more 
precious  than  all  queenly  regalia,  it  dissolves  in  one  cup  of  evil  gladness 
"the  Pearl  of  Great  Price!  " 

THE  BIBLE. —  After  the  battle  before  Richmond  had  been  over  sev- 
eral days,  a  man  was  found  dead,  with  his  hand  on  the  open  Bible.  The 
summer  insects  had  taken  the  flesh  from  the  hand,  and  there  was  nothing 
but  the  skeleton  left;  but  the  skeleton  fingers  lay  on  the  open  page,  and 
on  this  passage:  "Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil;  Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff  they  comfort  me. 
Well,  the  time  will  come  when  all  the  fine  novels  we  have  on  our  bed- 
room shelf  will  not  interest  us,  and  all  the  good  histories  and  all  the 
exquisite  essays  will  do  us  no  good.  There  will  be  one  Book,  perhaps 
its  cover  worn  out  and  its  leaf  yellow  with  age,  under  whose  flash  we 
shall  behold  the  opening  gates  of  heaven 


394  KIlfGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

REMOKSE. — For  every  sin,  great  or  small,  conscience,  which  is  the 
voice  of  God,  has  a  reproof  more  or  less  emphatic.  Charles  IX., 
responsible  for  the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre,  was  chased  by  the  bitter 
memories  of  his  deeds,  and  in  his  dying  moments  said  to  his  doctor, 
Ambrose  Parry : 

"  Doctor,  I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with  me  ;  I  am  in  a  fever 
of  body  and  mind,  and  have  been  for  a  long  while.  Oh,  if  I  had  only 
spared  the  innocent  and  the  imbecile  and  the  crippled!"  Rousseau 
declared  in  old  age  that  a  sin  he  committed  in  his  youth  still  gave  him 
sleepless  nights.  Charles  II.,  of  Spain,  could  not  sleep  unless  he  had 
in  the  room  a  confessor  or  two  friars.  Cataline  had  such  bitter  memo- 
ries he  was  startled  at  the  least  sound.  Cardinal  Beaufort,  having  slain 
the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  often  in  the  night  would  say: 

"Away!  away!  Why  do  you  look  at  me?" 

Richard  III.,  having  slain  his  two  nephews,  would  sometimes  in  the 
night  leap  from  his  couch  and  clutch  his  sword,  fighting  apparitions. 

RICHES. — Among  the  Sierra  Nevada  mountains  I  was  walking  with 
some  of  the  passengers  to  relieve  the  overladen  stage,  and  one  of  them 
gave  me  his  history.  He  said  :  ""With  my  wife  I  came  to  California 
twenty  years  ago.  We  suffered  every  hardship.  I  went  to  the  mines, 
but  had  no  luck.  I  afterward  worked  at  a  trade,  but  had  no  luck. 
Then  I  went  to  farming,  but  had  no  luck.  We  suffered  almost 
starvation.  Every  thing  seemed  to  go  against  us.  While  we  were 
in  complete  poverty  my  wife  died.  After  her  death  I  went  again 
to  the  mines.  I  struck  a  vein  of  gold  which  yielded  me  forty 
thousand  dollars.  I  am  now  on  my  way  to  San  Francisco  to  transfer 
the  mine,  for  which  I  am  to  receive  one  hundred  thousand  dollars." 

"Then,"  said  I,  "you  are  worth  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
dollars." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "but  it  c&mes  too  late.  My  wife  is  gone.  The 
money  is  nothing  to  me  now." 

LIFE. — I  once  stood  on  a  platform  with  a  clergyman,  who  told  this 
marvelous  story:  "Thirty  years  ago  two  young  men  started  out  to 
attend  Park  Theater,  New  York,  to  see  a  play  which  made  religion  ridic- 
ulous and  hypocritical.  They  had  been  brought  up  in  Christian  fam- 
ilies. They  started  for  the  theater  to  see  that  vile  play,  and  their  early 
convictions  came  back  upon  them.  They  felt  it  was  not  right  to  go, 
but  still  they  went.  They  came  to  the  door  of  the  theater.  One  of  the 
young  men  stopped  and  started  for  home,  but  returned  and  came  up  to 
the  door,  but  had  not  the  courage  to  go  in.  lie  again  started  for  home, 
and  went  home.  The  other  young  man  went  in.  He  went  from  one 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAGE.  395 

degree  of  temptation  to  another.  Caught  in  the  whirl  of  frivolity  and 
sin,  he  sank  lower  and  lower.  He  lost  his  business  position.  He  lost 
his  morals.  He  lost  his  soul.  He  died  a  dreadful  death,  not  one  star 
of  mercy  shining  on  it.  I  stand  before  you  to-day,"  said  that  minister, 
"to  thank  God  that  for  twenty  years  I  have  been  permitted  to  preach 
the  gospel.  I  am  the  other  young  man." 

FORGIVENESS. — An  old  Christian  black  woman  was  going  along  the 
streets  of  New  York  with  a  basket  of  apples  that  she  had  for  sale.  A 
rough  sailor  ran  against  her  and  upset  the  basket,  and  stood  back, 
expecting  to  hear  her  scold  frightfully;  but  she  stooped  down  and 
picked  up  the  apples  and  said:  "  God  forgive  you,  my  son,  as  I  do." 
The  sailor  saw  the  meanness  of  what  he  had  done,  felt  in  his  pocket  for 
his  money,  and  insisted  that  she  should  take  it  all.  Though  she  was 
black,  he  called  her  mother,  and  said:  "Forgive  me,  mother,  I  will 
never  do  any  thing  so  mean  again."  Ah!  there  is  a  power  in  a  forgiv- 
ing spirit  to  overcome  all  hardness.  There  is  no  way  of  conquering 
men  like  that  of  bestowing  upon  them  your  pardon,  whether  they  will 
accept  it  or  not. 

DESTINY. — In  the  State  of  Ohio  there  is  a  court-house  that  stands 
in  such  a  way  that  the  rain-drops  that  fall  on  the  north  side  go  into 
Lake  Ontario  and  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  while  those  that  fall  on 
the  south  side  go  into  the  Mississippi  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Just  a 
little  puff  of  wind  determines  the  destiny  of  a  rain-drop  for  two 
thousand  miles.  "What  a  suggestive  thought,  that  you  and  I  may  be 
setting  in  motion  influences  that  shall  determine  a  man's  destiny  for 
eternity! 

MEKCIES. — There  was  a  man  who  came  over  from  New  York  some 
years  ago,  and  threw  himself  down  on  the  lounge  in  his  house,  and  said, 
"Well,  every  thing's  gone."  They  said,  "  What  do  you  mean?"  "Oh," 
he  replied,  "we  have  had  to  suspend  payment;  our  house  has  gone  to 
pieces — nothing  left."  His  little  child  bounded  from  the  other  side  of 
the  room,  and  said : 

"Papa,  you  have  me  left."  And  the  wife,  who  had  been  very 
sympathetic  and  helpful,  came  up  and  said: 

"Well,  my  dear,  you  have  me  left."  And  the  old  grandmother, 
seated  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  put  up  her  spectacles  on  her  wrinkled 
forehead  and  said: 

"My  son,  you  have  all  the  promises  of  God  left."  Then  the 
merchant  burst  into  tears  and  said: 

"What  an  ingrate  I  am!     I  find  I  have  a  great  many  things  left. 
God  forgive  me." 
26 


396  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFOR31  AND  PULPIT. 

SALVATION. — I  was  reading  of  a  ship  that  was  coming  from  Cali- 
fornia during  the  time  of  the  gold  excitement.  Theory  of  "  Fire!  fire!" 
was  heard  on  shipboard,  and  the  captain  headed  the  vessel  for  the  shore, 
but  it  was  found  that  the  ship  would  be  consumed  before  it  reached  the 
beach.  There  was  a  man  on  deck  fastening  his  gold  around  him  in  a 
belt,  just  ready  to  spring  overboard,  when  a  little  girl  came  up  to  him 
and  said: 

"  Sir,  can  you  swim  ?"  He  saw  it  was  a  question  whether  he  should 
save  his  gold  or  save  that  little  child,  and  he  said: 

"  Yes,  my  darling,  I  can  swim,"  and  he  dashed  his  gold  on  the  deck. 
"Now/'  he  says,  "put  your  arms  around  my  neck;  hold  on  very  hard; 
put  your  arms  around  my  neck." 

And  then  the  man  plunged  into  the  sea  and  put  out  for  the  beach, 
and  a  great  wave  lifted  him  high  upon  the  shore,  and  when  the  man 
was  being  brought  to  consciousness  he  looked  up;  the  little  child,  with 
anxious  face,  was  bending  over  him.  He  had  saved  her. 

SELF. — General  Fisk  says  that  he  once  stood  at  a  slave-block  where 
an  old  Christian  minister  was  being  sold.  The  auctioneer  said  of  him, 
"  What  bid  do  I  hear  for  this  man?  He  is  a  very  good  kind  of  a  man; 
he  is  a  minister."  Somebody  said: 

"Twenty  dollars."     (He  was  very  old,  and  not  worth  much.) 

"Twenty-five,"  said  a  second. 

"  Thirty,"  "Thirty-five,"  "Forty." 

The  aged  Christian  minister  began  to  tremble;  he  hud  expected 
to  be  able  to  buy  his  own  freedom,  and  he  had  just  seventy  dollars,  and 
expected  with  the  seventy  dollars  to  get  free.  As  the  bids  ran  up  the 
old  man  trembled  more  and  more. 

"Forty,"  "Forty-five,"  "Fifty,"  "Fifty-five,"  "Sixty,"  "Sixty- 
five." 

The  old  man  cried  out,  "Seventy  for  my  soul.  Not  a  cent  for  the 
body!  "  The  men  around  were  transfixed.  Nobody  dared  bid;  and  the 
auctioneer  struck  him  down  to  himself. 

"  Done — done!  Soul  and  body  for  seventy  dollars!" 

The  wicked  value  the  body  more  than  the  soul. 

MAN. — I  never  saw  the  honors  of  this  world  in  their  hollowness  and 
hypocrisy  so  much  as  I  have  seen  them  within  the  last  few  days,  as  I  have 
been  looking  over  the  life  and  death  of  that  wonderful  man,  Charles 
Sumner.  Now  that  he  is  dead  the  whole  nation  takes  off  the  hat.  The 
flags  are  at  half-mast  and  the  minute-guns  on  Boston  Common  throb, 
now  that  his  heart  has  ceased  to  beat.  Was  it  always  so?  While  he  lived, 


T.  DE  WITT  TALMAOE,  397 

how  censured  of  legislative  resolutions,  how  caricatured  of  the  pictorials, 
how  charged  with  every  motive  mean  and  ridiculous;  how,  when  struck 
down  in  the  senate-chamber,  there  were  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 
who  said,  "Good  for  him,  served  him  right!"  Oh  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts!  who  is  that  man  that  sleeps  to-night  in  your  public  hall, 
covered  with  garlands  and  wrapped  in  the  Stars  and  Stripes?  Is  that 
the  man  who,  only  a  few  months  ago,  you  denounced  as  the  foe  of 
Eepublican  and  Democratic  institutions?  Is  that  the  same  man  ?  You 
were  either  wrong  then  or  you  are  wrong  now — a  thing  most  certain,  Oh 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts!  "When  I  see  a  man  like  that  pursued 
by  all  the  hounds  of  the  political  kennel  so  long  as  he  lives,  and  then 
buried  under  garlands  almost  mountain  high,  and  amid  the  lamentations 
of  a  whole  nation,  I  say  to  myself,  "  What  an  unutterably  hypocritical 
thing  is  all  human  applause  and  all  human  favor!"  You  took  twenty- 
five  years  in  trying  to  pull  down  his  fame,  and  now  you  will  take  twenty- 
five  years  in  trying  to  build  his  monument.  You  were  either  wrong  then 
or  you  are  wrong  now.  My  friends,  was  there  ever  a  better  commentary 
on  the  hollowness  of  all  earthly  favor? 

BAPTISM. — When  I  was  in  San  Francisco  a  few  summers  ago,  at  the 
close  of  the  preaching  service,  a  young  man  came  up  on  the  steps  of  the 
pulpit  and  said: 

"  You  don't  know  me,  do  you?" 

"  No,"  I  replied,  "  I  do  not  remember  you." 

Said  he,  "I  am  James  Parrish.     Don't  you  know  James  Parrish?" 

"  Oh,  yes,"  I  said,  "  I  do  know  you;  I  remember."  Then  the  scene 
all  flashed  back  upon  me  of  a  small  room  in  Syracuse,  New  York, 
and  a  dying  mother  who  sent  for  me  and  an  elder  of  the  church  to  come 
and  baptize  her  children;  and  again  I  saw  her  lying  there  as  she  turned 
to  me  and  said,  "  Mr.  Talmage,  I  sent  for  you;  I  am  going  to  die,  but  I 
can't  die  until  my  children  are  in  the  church  of  God.  Will  you  please 
to  baptize  them?"  And  "in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Sou, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  I  baptized  them.  Then  she  folded  her  hands 
and  said,  "  It  is  enough.  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly." 

What  was  the  use  of  having  her  children  in  the  church? 

I  said  to  the  young  man  standing  on  the  pulpit  stairs  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, "  Oh,  yes,  I  suppose  you  yourself  have  become  a  Christian,  haven't 
you?" 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  said,  "  I  have." 

"  I  knew  you  would,"  I  said.  "Any  young  man  who  had  a  mother 
like  yours  could  not  help  but  be  a  Christian." 


398  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

A  father  said  to  his  son,  "  You  are  too  young  to  connect  yourself 
with  the  church  of  God;"  and  the  next  day,  while  they  were  out  in  the 
fields,  there  was  a  lamb  that  had  strayed  away,  and  it  was  bleating  for  its 
mother,  and  the  father  said  to  the  son: 

"  Take  that  lamb  over  to  the  fold  to  its  mother." 

"  Father,"  said  the  boy,  "I  guess  not;  you  had  better  let  it  stay  out 
here  six  months,  and  see  whether  it  lives  or  not;  and  if  it  lives  then  we 
can  take  it  in." 

The  father  felt  the  truth  at  his  heart,  and  said: 

e<  My  son,  take  that  lamb  in,  and  you  go  yourself  the  next  time  the 
Lord's  fold  opens." 

"Suffer  the  little  children  to  come  unto  Me,  and  forbid  them  not,  for 
of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 


ROBERT  COLLYER 

THE  BLACKSMITH  PREACHER. 


BIOGRAPHY    AND   REMINISCENCES. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Robert  Collyer  was  born  in  Yorkshire,  England,  in  1822.  His  par- 
ents were  poor.  He  came  to  America  as  a  blacksmith  and  settled  in  a  little  hamlet 
in  Pennsylvania.  George  Alfred  Townsend  gives  many  reminiscences  about  Mr.  Coll- 
yer  when  he  was  a  village  blacksmith  like  Elihu  Burritt.  The  great  preacher 
studied  hard,  and  his  wisdom  and  glowing  eloquence  soon  raised  him  above  the  shop 
into  scholastic  and  theological  circles,  until  he  now  presides  over  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful Unitarian  churches  in  New  York.  Dr.  Collyer  and  Dr.  John  Hall  arc  said  to 
be  two  of  the  handsomest,  and,  at  the  same  time,  two  of  the  most  modest  clergymen 
in  public  life.  Dr.  Collyer  has  written  several  books,  and  his  lectures  have  been 
widely  popular,  especially  his  favorite  lecture  "  Grit." 

Dr.  Collyer  is  always  looking  on  the  sunny  side  of  life.  "  A 
dear  good  old  lady  taught  me  to  look  for  the  silver  lining,"  said  the 
doctor, 

"  Ho:v  did  she  teach  you  ? "  I  asked. 

"By  example,"  said  the  doctor,  smiling  benignly.  "  She  was  a 
very  poor  woman  and  was  overwhelmed  with  trouble.  She  had  a 
drunken  husband  and  a  sick  baby.  Still  she  was  always  cheerful. 

u  One  day  I  said  :  'Mary  you  must  have  some  very  dark  days; 
they  must  overcome  you  with  clouds  sometimes.' 

"  '  Yes,'  she  replied  ;  '  but  then  I  often  find  there's  comfort  in  a 
cloud.' 

"  '  Comfort  in  a  cloud,  Mary  ? ' 

" '  Yes,'  she  said ;  '  when  I  am  very  low  and  dark  I  go  to  the  win- 
dow; and  if  I  see  a  heavy  cloud  I  think  of  those  precious  words,  "  A 
cloud  received  Him  out  of  their  sif;ht,"  and  I  look  up  and  see  the 
cloud  sure  enough,  and  then  I  think — well,  that  may  be  the  cloud 
that  hides  Him;  and  so  you  see  there  is  comfort  in  a  cloud.'  " 

399 


40U  EIXGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Dr.  Colly er  is  a  strictly  temperate  man,  but  still  likes  a  good  din- 
ner. English  roast  beef  and  plum  pudding  are  his  favorite  dishes. 

The  doctor  told  me  that  one  of  his  best  dinners  was  almost 
spoiled  by  a  joke. 

"  But  a  joke  ought  to  spice  a  dinner,"  I  saio. 

"  It  did  spice  this  dinner  a  little  too  much,"  said  the  doctor. 

u  I  was  dining  one  evening  at  Delmonico's,  and  had  arrived  at  the 
cheese  stage  of  my  repast.  A  delightful  piece  of  Koquefort  was  set 
before  me,  ripe,  vivacious,  self-mobilizing.  There  is  nothing  I  like 
better  than  a  lively  cheese,  and  I  had  just  transferred  a  spoonful  of 
the  delicacy  in  question  to  my  plate,  when  Henry  Bergh,  sitting  at 
a  neighboring  table,  sprang  to  his  feet  with  a  cry  of  horror,  clutched 
my  wrist  with  an  iron  grasp,  and  exclaimed: 

" l  Hold,  monster!    Never  shall  you  swallow  a  mouthful  of  that 
cheese  in  my  presence ! ' 

"  '  And  why  not?'     I  inquired  in  perplexed  amazement. 

"  '  Because,  cruel  man,  I  am  a  member  of  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  and  I  will  not  sit  by  calmly  and 
see  those  innocent  insects  tortured.' " 

Dr.  Collyer  tells  a  good  many  anecdotes  at  his  own  expense,  but 
they  are  all  as  pure  as  our  Savior's  parables.  One  day  Mr.  Collyer 
was  talking  to  a  good  old  colored  man  down  in  Kentucky.  Mr.  Coll- 
yer always  wears  his  white  clerical  tie,  so  the  conversation  was 
naturally  about  preachers. 

"  So,  Uncle  Jack,"  said  Dr.  Collyer,  "  you  don't  much  believe  in 
the  idea  that  men  are  called  to  preach/' 

"  Wall  sah,  de  Lawd  mout  call  some  niggers  ter  preach,  but  it 
sorter  'peers  ter  me  dat  whar  de  Lawd  calls  one  old  man,  Laziness 
calls  er  dozen.  Nine  nigger  preachers  L-uten  ten  is  de  lazies'  pussens 
in  de  worP  sah." 

"  How  do  you  know  Uncle  Jack  ? " 

"  Case  I'se  a  preacher  nierse'f,  sah." 

This  caused  a  scream  from  all  the  clergyman  in  the  car. 

Dr.  Thomas,  of  Chicago,  who  believes  a  good  deal  like  Collyer, 
said  afterward  that  he  had  some  experience  about  being  called  to 
preach  once  that  reminded  him  of  the  old  colored  man's  call. 

"  How  was  it?  "  asked  Collyer. 

""Well,"  said  the  doctor,  "I  had  a  call  at  an  advance  salary  to  go 
to  Richmond,  after  considering  it  a  good  while  I  finally  concluded 


"HOW  DO  YOU  KNOW,  UNCLE  JACK?' 


Foe  DfiRe  400. 


ROBERT  COLLTER.  401 

to  remain  in  Chicago.    About  a  week  afterward  some  one  sent  my 
wife  the  Richmond  Telegram  in  which  was  this  poem  : 

"Beloved  flock,"  the  parson  said,  then  paused  and  wiped  his  eyes; 
"  As  pastor  and  as  people  we  must  sever  tender  ties; 
I've  a  call  to  go  to  Richmond  to  be  their  chosen  pastor; 
A  call  so  loud  to  disobey,  I  fear,  would  grieve  the  Master." 

Replied  the  spokesman  of  the  flock:     "Though  loud  the  or.ll  may  be, 
We'll  call  you  louder  to  remain,  an  X  for  every  V. 
Whatever  Richmond  offers  you  we'll  give  to  keep  you  here, 
We  trust  you'll  hear  a  voice  divine,  our  call's  so  loud  and  clear." 

With  sobbing  voice  the  parson  said:  "My  duty's  clearer  now; 
I'll  stay  with  you,  beloved  ones;  to  heaven's  will  I  bow, 
So  let  us  sing  'Blest  Be  the  Tie,'  and  sing  it  clear  and  strong; 
To  leave  you  when  you  call  so  loud  would  be  exceeding  wrong!  " 

Then  in  his  study  he  sat  down,  a  letter  to  indite 

Unto  the  church  at  Richmond.     Thus  did  the  parson  write: 

"I've  wrestled  o'er  your  call  with  prayer;  the  Lord  bids  me  to  stay, 

And,  consecrated  to  His  work,  I  dare  not  disobey." 

Dr.  Collyer  tells  me  that  he  got  the  following  story  from  Dr. 
E.  H.  Chapin,  the  great  Universalist  divine : 

A  pious  old  Kentucky  deacon — Deacon  Shelby — was  famous  as 
a  shrewd  horse  dealer.  One  day  farmer  Jones  went  over  to  Bour- 
bon county,  taking  his  black  boy,  Jim,  with  him,  to  trade  horses  with 
brother  Shelby.  After  a  good  deal  of  dickering,  they  finally  made 
the  trade,  and  Jim  rode  the  new  horse  home. 

"Whose  horse  is  that,  Jim?"  asked  some  of  the  horse-trading 
deacon's  neighbors,  as  Jim  rode  past. 

"  Massa  Jones',  sah." 

"  What !    did  Jones  trade  horses  with  Deacon  Shelby  ? " 

"  Yes,  Massa  Jones  dun  traded  wid  de  deakin." 

"Goodness,  Jim!  wasn't  your  master  afraid  the  deacon  would 
get  the  best  of  him  in  the  trade  ? " 

"  Oh  no  !  "  replied  Jim,  as  his  eyes  glistened  with  a  new  intelli- 
gence, "Massa  knowed  how  Deakin  Shelby  has  dun  got  kinder  pious 
lately,  and  he  was  on  his  guard  !  " 

One  day  Dr.  Collyer  was  talking  about  repentance  before  his 
Sabbath-school  class.  "  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  you  can  not  expect 
forgiveness  without  repentance.  It  is  not  a  one  sided  act." 

A  little  while  afterward  the  Doctor  called  up  a  little  girl  and 
questioned  her  about  the  lesson. 


402  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Now,  Mary,  tell  us  all  what  you  must  first  do  to  have  your  sins 
forgiven." 

"  "Well,"  said  little  Mary,  with  a  lisp,  "  I  des  I  must  first  do  out 
and  do  the  sin." 

Dr.  Colly er  has  a  big,  loving  heart,  and  was  never  known  to 
resent  an  indignity.  The  soft  answer  was  always  in  his  mouth. 
One  day  the  blacksmith  preacher  bought  a  horse  of  a  Pennsylvania 
farmer.  The  next  day  the  horse  strayed  into  the  road  and  a  mean 
neighbor  caught  him  and  put  him  in  the  pound.  "When  Mr.  Collyer 
called  on  him  the  next  morning,  the  man  said,  very  savagely : 

"  Yes,  I  did  catch  your  horse  in  the  road  and  I  put  him  in  the 
pound,  and  I'll  do  it  again ! " 

"Neighbor,"  replied  Dr.  Collyer  with  a  polite  smile,  "not  long 
since  I  looked  out  of  my  window  in  the  night  and  saw  your  cattle 
in  my  meadow,  and  I  drove  them  out  and  shut  them  in  your  yard ; 
and  I'll  do  it  again." 

Struck  with  the  doctor's  reply,  the  man  liberated  the  horse  from 
the  pound,  and  paid  the  charges  himself. 

"  A  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath." 

"Speaking  of  politeness,"  said  the  doctor,  "I  learned  my  first 
lesson  in  that  accomplishment  from  a  young  lady." 

"  How  was  it  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Well,  one  evening  a  sweet,  young  lady,  came  round  the  corner 
of  our  church  in  great  haste.  I  think  she  was  hastening  to  catch  a 
car.  As  she  abruptly  turned  the  corner  she  ran  against  a  boy  who 
was  small  and  ragged  and  freckled.  Stopping  as  soon  as  she  could, 
she  turned  to  him  and  said. 

"  '  I  beg  your  pardon ;  indeed,  I  am  very  sorry.' 

"The  small  ragged  and  freckled  boy  looked  up  in  blank  amaze- 
ment for  an  instant;  then,  taking  off  about  three-fourths  of  a  cap, 
he  bowed  very  IOWT,  smiled  until  his  face  became  lost  in  the  smile, 
and  answered. 

" '  You  can  hev  my  parding,  and  welcome,  Miss ;  and  yer  may 
run  agin  me  and  knock  me  clean  down,  an'  I  won't  say  a  word.' 

"After  the  young  lady  passed,"  said  the  doctor,  "  the  boy  turned 
to  a  comrade  and  said,  half  apologetically,  '  I  never  had  any  one  ask 
my  parding,  and  it  kind  o'  took  me  off  my  feet.' 5! 

"One  day,"  said  the  doctor,  "a  good,  old  Scotchman,  uncon- 
sciously paid  me  a  great  compliment.  I  had  preached  a  strong 


.-' 


ROBERT  COLLY ER.  403 

plain  sermon — just  such  a  sermon  as  a  blacksmith  would  preach. 
When  I  got  through,  the  old  gentleman  came  up  to  me  and  I  asked 
him  how  he  liked  the  sermon. 

"  '  "Well,  sir,'  was  the  unequivocal  reply,  '  I  can't  say  that  I  liked 
it  very  well.  It  was  a  little  too  pline  for  me.  I  likes  a  preacher  as 
joombles  the  r'ason  and  confoonds  the  joodgment ;  and  of  all  the 
born  preachers  I've  heerd,  you  cooms  the  furthest  from  that.' 3: 

The  doctor,  who  speaks  the  Scotch  and  Yorkshire  dialects  as 
well  as  English,  delights  to  tell  this  story. 

Dr.  Collyer,  like  Chapin  and  Beecher  and  Dr.  Storrs,  always 
makes  every  text  simple  and  plain.  There  was  nothing  like  the 
vagueness  of  Emerson  about  their  reasoning. 

Dr.  Chapin  used  to  tell  about  a  little  experience  he  had  with  a 
dear,  good,  old  colored  preacher  down  in  Kentucky.  After  Chapin 
had  talked  with  Uncle  Jacob  a  little  while,  the  old  colored  clergy- 
man turned  to  him  and  said:  "  Yes,  Brudder  Chapin,  we  preachers 
must  wuck  with  energy,  ef  we  wucker  tall.  Scriptah  says,  '  "Wot- 
somever  you  hastest  fer  to  do  you  oughter  dust  it  wid  all  yo*  hawt 
an'  mine  an'  stren'th.'  An'  above  all  things,  doan  pronasticrate." 

"  Don't  whichtycrate,  Uncle  Jacob  ?  "What  do  you  mean  ? " 
asked  Chapin. 

"  I  mean  doan  pronasticrate,  Brudder  Chapin.  Doan  put  off  tell 
nex'  week  whatchah  orter  done  lass  year.  Time,  Brudder  Chapin, 
is  a  mighty  hahd  hoss  to  head.  Tharfo'  it  behoofs  you,  as  Scriptah 
says,  to  ketch  him  by  the  fetlock  ef  you  wantah  come  undah  de 
wiah  'fo'  he  does." 

DR.  COLLYER'g  LECTURE  TO  YOUNG  MEN 
ON  TWO  EMIGRANTS. 

GENESIS  IX.  Si,  52. 

If  you  take  a  map  of  the  region  in  which  the  man  lived,  whose  story 
I  want  to  touch  for  you  as  it  touches  my  own  heart,  I  think  you  will  be 
able  to  form  some  idea  of  what  he  did  in  contrast  with  what  he  set  out 
to  do.  Haran  is  about  a  day's  march  from  the  old  homestead  he  left, 
while  Canaan  is  ten  or  twelve  ;  and  it  is  easy  going  to  Haran,  one  would 
think,  but  very  hard  to  Canaan,  because  after  you  leave  the  place  at 
which  he  halted,  and  push  on  toward  that  he  aimed  at,  you  have  to  cross 
a  river  over  which  there  is  or  was  no  bridge,  a  desert  of  seven  days'  jour- 
ney, and  the  ragged  passes  of  the  mountains.  So  that  to  reach  Haran 


404  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

from  TJr  would  be  a  sort  of  picnic,  but  to  reach  Canaan  after  that 
would  be  a  painful  pilgrimage,  which  would  demand  about  all  the  pluck 
and  courage  there  was  in  you. 

Then,  if  we  could  see  this  Edessa,  as  it  came  to  be  called  at  a  later 
day,  we  might  guess  how  Terah  caught  the  idea  of  going  to  Canaan. 
Edessa  is  a  pretty  little  place,  travelers  say,  as  you  shall  find  anywhere 
in  old  ChaldaBa.  It  stands  in  a  sort  of  desert,  beside  a  deep,  clear  spring, 
in  the  midst  of  shade-trees  and  fruit-trees,  and,  above  this,  there  rises  a 
great  rock  on  which  there  has  stood  a  fortress,  time  out  of  mind,  to  which 
they  could  retreat  when  the  enemy  came,  and  defend  themselves  when 
there  was  no  hope  that  they  could  do  this  on  the  plain.  This  was 
about  the  sum  and  substance  then  of  Edessa,  a  small  place  standing 
by  itself  in  a  desert,  very  pleasant  and  good  to  live  in  if  you  are  content 
to  live  in  a  small  way,  and  nourish  no  ambition  for  a  wider  and  larger  life. 

Now,  Terah,  if  we  may  trust  the  old  traditions,  was  a  brass-founder 
in  this  pent-up  place,  and  his  special  line  of  business  was  the  making  of 
molten  gods.  But  such  an  industry  as  that  must  have  been  rather 
limited,  for  good  reasons.  Only  so  many  would  be  wanted,  at  the  most, 
and  they  would  not  wear  out  as  wagons  do,  and  plows,  but  the  older 
they  grew,  the  better  the  people  would  like  them.  Nor  would  there  be 
any  great  improvement  possible,  except  by  permission  of  the  priests, 
who  are  usually  the  last  men  in  the  world  to  admit  that  such  things  can 
be  improved;  so  the  poor  man  could  not  strike  a  new  idea  in  this  matter  of 
the  molten  gods,  and  push  the  old  incumbents  from  their  stools,  or  melt 
them  over  and  bring  them  out  in  a  finer  fashion,  allowing  buyers  so 
much  for  the  old  metal. 

We  may  guess,  therefore,  in  what  a  strait  Terah  found  himself  at 
last,  and  why  he  may  have  begun  to  look  with  longing  eyes  westward. 
This  Canaan  away  over  the  river,  the  desert,  and  the  mountains,  seems 
to  have  been  a  sort  of  Pacific  Slope  in  those  times;  a  splendid  land  of 
promise,  in  which  you  could  live  to  your  heart's  content,  when  once  you 
got  there;  widen  the  whole  horizon  of  your  life;  find  untold  outlets  for 
your  powers;  plant  the  stocks  anew  which  had  no  room  to  grow  in  the 
pent-up  garden-plat  of  Edessa,  and  then  die  when  your  time  came, 
happy  in  the  thought  that  you  had  made  your  stroke,  and  opened  the 
way  toward  a  larger  and  fairer  life. 

So  Terah,  as  I  have  come  to  think  of  him,  it  may  be  because  I  am  an 
emigrant  myself,  began  to  look  with  longing  eyes  toward  the  land  of 
Canaan.  He  was  ready,  as  he  thought,  to  give  up  comfort  for  freedom; 
and  a  home  and  workshop  in  a  pent-up  place,  in  which  he  was  bound  to 
follow  time-honored  traditions  and  usages,  for  a  tent,  if  it  must  be  so, 


ROBERT  COLLYER.  405 

on  the  treezy  slopes  away  beyond  the  mountains,  with  the  ocean  for  his 
boundary  on  the  one  side  and  the  desert  on  the  other;  and  to  exchange 
the  safe  citadel  on  the  rock  for  the  nobler  fastness  of  a  manhood  that 
would  hold  its  own  against  the  world,  and  win. 

It  was  a  tremendous  thing,  as  things  stood  then,  to  do.  I  think  I 
can  see  him  through  the  mists  of  time,  sitting  there  in  his  workshop  with 
his  gods  about  him,  trying  to  count  the  cost,  and  all  the  time,  as  he 
thinks  of  it,  the  plan  grows  more  and  more  feasible.  Then  he  consults 
the  young  men  about  it,  his  sou  and  nephew;  and  of  all  things  in  the 
world,  of  course,  this  is  what  they  would  like  to  do,  especially  his  son, 
who  has  already  begun  to  dream  of  a  wider  and  higher  life  for  himself- 
So  there  would  be  a  notice,  we  may  presume,  sent  through  the  town,  of 
a  house  and  shop  for  sale,  and  the  molten  gods  withal,  at  the  buyer's 
own  price,  because  Terah  must  be  rid  of  them,  he  is  going  far  away. 
Then  the  roots  of  his  life  would  be  torn  out  of  the  soil  in  which  they  had 
flourished,  from  father  to  son,  ever  since  the  time  of  the  Tower  of 
Babel.  And  there  would  be  weeping  among  them,  I  think,  and  visits 
made  to  the  graves  of  those  they  had  loved,  and  the  homes  of  their  kins- 
folk all  about;  and  then,  on  a  morning,  you  would  see  them  set  out  on 
their  day's  march  to  Haran,  where  they  would  halt,  and  start  on  the 
morrow  toward  the  river  and  the  promised  land.  That  morrow  never 
came  to  Terah.  How  it  was,  we  do  not  know — we  know  only  this,  that 
forward  to  Canaan  he  does  not  take  another  step.  Haran  itself  is  a 
pleasant  place,  I  hear,  with  plenty  of  good  land  about  it;  and  there 
would  be  a  better  chance  for  life  and  a  living,  it  may  be,  there,  than  any 
he  had  left  behind  him  in  Edessa.  Be  this  as  it  may,  reason  or  none, 
there  he  stayed  a  great  while,  and  there  he  died.  One  day's  march  from 
the  place  he  had  left,  ten  or  twelve  from  that  he  dreamed  of,  far 
away  yet  from  the  promised  land.  And  so,  never  now  will  he  see  the 
white  glories  of  Lebanon,  never  the  summer  splendors  of  Hermon  and 
Sharon,  and  never  the  blue  sea  turning  to  gold  as  he  watches  it  at  sun- 
set from  the  cresfs  at  Carmel.  He  started  on  a  journey;  it  ended,  one 
might  almost  say,  in  a  jaunt.  He  dreamed  of  the  mountains,  and  settled 
on  a  flat.  His  ideal  was  freedom,  to  be  bought  with  a  great  price;  he 
struck  this  one  stroke  for  it,  and  accepted  comfort  again  on  good 
securities.  He  went  back  no  more;  but  then,  he  went  forward  no  farther 
— got  his  chance  just  this  once  at  a  singular,  separate,  generous,  free 
life,  which  held  in  its  heart  unknown  treasures  of  greatness  and  worthy 
if  he  had  only  gone  forth  that  morning,  and  made  them  his  own.  The 
morning  came,  and  Terah  was  not  ready.  He  was  not  to  be  one  of  the 
units  in  our  life,  after  all,  but  only  one  of  the  vulgar  fractions;  not  one 


406  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

of  the  men  who  stand  out  in  clear  and  bold  relief  against  the  darkness 
of  the  ages,  but  one  of  the  masses  of  men — Terah,  the  father  of  Abra- 
ham, who  set  out  for  the  promised  land,  and  then  halted  at  the  end  of 
the  one  day's  march. 

But  now,  as  I  watch  him  sitting  there,  I  am  moved  to  make  some 
plea  for  a  kindlier  judgment  than  this  I  have  rendered  touching  his 
failure.  It  is  clear,  for  one  thing,  that  he  is  far  on  in  years  when  he 
feels  this  impulse  to  strike  out  toward  a  wider  and  finer  life,  and  so  his 
years  would  tell  against  him.  Old  men  soon  tire  of  new  adventures. 
They  are  "afraid  of  that  which  is  high."  Then  this  was  not  only 
change  which  was  waiting  in  his  outward  life,  but  a  wrench  to  his  inward 
life  also.  This  son  of  his,  who  grows  to  be  one  of  the  supreme  men,  you 
know,  of  the  world,  has  set  his  face  already  against  the  old  gods,  and  is 
no  doubt  looking  forward  to  the  new  home  as  a  place  where  he  will  not 
only  be  free  to  go  where  he  will  and  do  what  he  will  earthward,  but 
heavenward  too;  and  I  think  Terah  guesses  this  is  just  what  will  befall 
them.  So  we  may  imagine  where  the  main  trouble  lies.  Here  is  a  man 
setting  out  on  a  great  new  enterprise,  at  a  time  of  life  when  nature 
opposes  instead  of  helping  him;  looking  forward  with  his  eyes,  while  his 
heart  is  looking  backward;  a  man  with  Canaan  on  his  lips  and  Edessa 
in  his  marrow;  giving  up  the  old  paths  which  are  as  familiar  to  him  as 
his  own  dooryard,  to  wander  away  over  hills  and  dales  all  new  to  him, 
and  all  strange.  I  do  not  wonder  the  old  man's  heart  failed  him.  He 
needed  more  than  an  impulse  to  lift  him  out  of  his  old  life.  Only  an 
inspiration  could  do  that,  and  I  am  not  sure  even  this  could  have  mas- 
tered him  when  so  much  of  life  lay  behind  him.  And  so  he  must  have 
said,  sadly  enough,  "  It  is  no  use.  I  will  not  go  back,  but  I  can  not  go 
forward.  I  will  settle  down  here,  and  wait  for  the  angel  of  death.  I 
can  still  do  a  very  good  day's  work  in  Haran.  They  have  no  such  gods 
here  as  I  used  to  turn  out  in  the  old  place.  Their  ideals  are  low.  I 
will  go  to  work  and  improve  them."  Something  like  this  he  must  have 
said  to  the  young  men,  while  they  talked  with  him  of  the  better  land, 
its  freedom  and  beauty,  and  its  rich  reward.  They  spoke  of  freedom,  he 
preferred  safety;  of  the  mountains,  he  was  wedded  to  the  flat;  of  the 
sea,  he  liked  the  little  river  better,  purling  along  in  the  sunshine;  of 
great  rides  across  the  greensward,  he  liked  his  arm-chair  better,  on  the 
porch  in  summer,  and  in  winter  by  the  fire.  "  So  Terah  took  Abram 
his  son,  and  Lot  his  brother's  son,  and  Sarah  his  daughter-in-law,  and 
went  forth  with  them  from  TJr  of  the  Chaldees  to  go  to  Canaan;  and 
they  came  to  Haran  and  dwelt  there,  and  Terah  died  in  Haran." 


ROBERT  COLLTER.  407 

But  we  have  to  notice,  again,  that  this  is  by  no  means  the  end  of  the 
one  day's  march,  for  now  we  see  what  we  have  come  to  call  "  evolution  " 
at  work.  Terah  brings  the  young  men  so  far  toward  this  larger  and 
better  life  he  would  fain  have  found,  and  then  the  impulse  in  him  to  go 
forward  is  mastered  by  the  longing  to  sit  still.  But  the  time  comes 
when  that  which  was  only  an  impulse  in  the  father  changes  in  the  son 
to  an  inspiration,  through  which  he  not  only  carries  out  the  whole  inten- 
tion of  Terah,  but  does  more  than  he  ever  dreamed  of  doing,  because 
that  which  was  only  a  desire  in  the  first  man  to  better  himself,  becomes 
in  the  second,  a  blessing  to  the  race,  and  the  whisper  of  ambition  in  the 
one  man  changes  in  the  other  to  the  voice  of  God. 

I  need  not  dwell  long  on  this  point  in  the  story.  I  need  only  say  that 
there  is  no  evidence,  or  hint  even,  of  a  Divine  light  and  leading  in  what 
these  men  are  doing,  until  Terah  is  dead.  But  then  God  speaks  to  his- 
son,  bids  him  get  out  of  Haran,  and  pass  over  to  the  promised  land;, 
and  once  there  he  becomes  the  spring-head  of  the  floods  of  blessing  to 
which  the  prophets  belong  and  the  psalmists,  the  seed  of  a  mighty  and 
matchless  harvest  the  world  is  reaping  still  for  the  everlasting  life.  So, 
while  the  old  man  never  saw  the  promised  land,  the  young  man  saw  it, 
and  pre-empted  it,  as  we  say,  for  the  home  of  the  race  which  lay  in  his 
loins  when  he  did  cross  the  river  and  the  mountains,  and  saw  the  land 
he  had  been  dreaming  of  so  long,  while  the  old  father's  arm  was  about 
his  neck,  holding  him  back  from  his  great  desire.  And  so  it  seems  but 
the  simple  truth  to  say  that  some  touch  of  this  glory  rests  on  the  old 
man's  grave,  after  all,  because  we  have  no  sure  reason  to  think  that  the 
son  would  have  gone  to  Canaan  if  the  father  had  not  set  out  to  go,  even 
if  he  did  break  down  at  the  end  of  the  first  day's  march.  The  impulse 
came  first,  the  inspiration  followed;  but  who  shall  be  sure  we  could  have 
had  the  one  without  the  other?  There  are  those,  I  suppose,  in  Edessa 
to-day,  who  have  come  straight  down  from  some  man  who  was  quite 
content  to  stay  there  when  Terah  tore  out  the  roots  of  his  life;  called 
him  an  old  fool,  perhaps,  for  not  letting  well  enough  alone;  bought  his 
molten  gods,  it  may  be — a  dead  bargain — made  money  on  them ;  and 
never  once  in  all  his  life,  looked  beyond  the  palm-trees  and  the  spring; 
but  in  all  the  world  you  would  hardly  find  a  poorer  story  of  what  men 
may  do  for  the  world's  help  and  blessing  than  such  a  line  of  men  would 
have  to  tell  you.  It  is  the  first  step  which  costs;  and  taking  this  first  step,  I 
love  to  believe,  did  something  very  noble  for  the  genius  and  inspiration 
which  has  made  our  Bible  the  supreme  book  of  the  world,  and  this 
Hebrew  line  the  greatest  touching  the  religious  life  the  world  has  ever 
known.  Terah's  dream  never  came  true;  but  then,  he  had  the  dream,. 


4C8  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

and  did  something  to  make  it  come  true  to  his  son,  and  so  to  the  race. 
They  say  the  way  to  hell  is  paved  with  good  intentions.  Well,  here  is 
one  of  the  good  intentions,  then,  that  pave  the  way  to  heaven.  He  did 
see  the  promised  land,  after  all,  through  the  eyes  of  the  man  he  had 
gotten  from  the  Lord;  and  there  was  a  strain  of  the  sturdy  striving 
which  had  paid  the  price  of  leaving  the  old  place,  in  him  who  would 
never  stop  until  he  came  to  the  new.  So  his  feet  also  are  beautiful  upon 
the  mountains,  though  he  never  saw  them.  I  said  he  started  on  a  jour- 
ney, and  it  ended  in  a  jaunt;  but  this  must  not  blind  us  to  what  that 
jaunt  must  have  cost  him — the  great  sorrow  of  parting — the  heart-ache 
of  the  man  who  seems  to  have  stopped  for  the  bone-ache.  He  did  not  do 
all  he  set  out  to  do,  let  us  allow  this;  but  he  did  more  than  any  other 
man  of  his  clan  in  Edessa;  and  dying  in  Haran,  he  was  not  only  one 
day's  march  on  the  road  to  this  larger  and  finer  life,  but  he  had  made  it 
so  much  easier  for  the  young  men  to  go  right  on  to  the  end. 

And  so  this  man's  life  touches  yours  and  mine,  and  opens  out  toward 
some  truths  we  may  well  lay  to  our  hearts,  and  this  is  the  first:  That,  if 
I  want  to  do  a  great  and  good  thing  in  this  world,  of  any  sort,  while 
the  best  of  my  life  lies  still  before  me,  the  sooner  I  set  about  it  the 
better.     For,  while  there  is  always  a  separate  and  special  worth  in  a 
good  old  age,  this  power  is  very  seldom  in  it,  I  would  try  to  verify;  and 
it  is  not  your  old  Philip,  but  your  young  Alexander,  who  conquers  the 
world.     I  can  remember  no  grand  invention,  no  peerless  reform  in  life 
or  religion,  no  noble  enterprise,  no  superb  stroke  of  any  sort,  that  was 
not  started  from  a  spark  in  our  youth  and  early  manhood.     Once  well 
past  that  line,  and  you  can  dream  of  Canaan;  but  the  chances  are,  you 
will  stop  at  Haran,  so  this  putting  off  any  great  and  good  adventure 
from  your  earlier  to  your  later  age  is  like  waiting  for  low  water  before 
you  launch  your  ship.     If  we  want  to  make  our  dream  of  a  nobler  and 
wider  life  of  any  sort  come  true,  we  must  push  on  while  the  fresh  strong 
powers  are  in  us,  which  are  more  than  half  the  battle.     The  whole 
wealth  of  real  enterprise  belongs  to  our  youth  and  earlier  manhood.     It 
is  then  that  we  get  our  chance  of  rising  from  a  collective  mediocrity  into 
some  sort  of  distinct  nobility.     We  may  be  ever  so  sincere  after  this, 
as  far  as  we  can  go;  but  we  shall  only  go  to  Haran.     Yes,  and  we  may 
have  a  splendid  vision,  as  when  this  man  saw  Hermon  and  Sharon  and 
i,he  sea  in  his  mind's  eye,  as  he  sat  in  his  chair;  and  a  noble  and  good 
intention,  as  when  he  started  for  the  mountains,  and  halted  on  the 
plain;  but  just  this  is  what  will  befall  us  also,  if  we  are  not  true  to  this 
holy  law  of  our  life. 


EGBERT  COLL7ER.  409 

This  is  my  first  thought;  and  my  second  must  take  the  form  of  a  plea 
with  those  who  do  strike  out  to  do  grand  and  good  things  in  this  world, 
and  do  not  halt,  but  march  right  on,  and  then  nourish  a  certain  contempt 
for  those  who  still  lag  behind.  The  chances  are,  it  is  because  these 
begin  too  late,  that  they  end  too  soon;  and  it  is  no  small  matter  that  they 
begin  at  all.  For  myself,  I  can  only  blame  them,  when,  with  the 
visions  of  a  nobler  life  haunting  the  heart,  they  tell  me  that  Haran  is 
good  enough  for  anybody,  and  we  need  none  of  us  look  for  anything 
better.  If  they  know  all  the  while,  as  this  man  knew,  that  the  land  of 
promise  still  lies  beyond  the  line  at  which  they  have  halted,  and  will 
say  so  frankly,  though  they  may  go  only  the  one  day's  march,  I  can 
still  bare  my  head  in  reverence  before  such  men.  I  know  what  it  is  to 
leave  these  Edessas  of  our  life,  and  what  it  costs;  how  the  old  homes 
and  altars  still  have  the  pull  on  you,  and  the  shadows  of  the  palm-trees, 
and  the  well  at  which  you  have  drunk  so  long,  and  what  loving  arms 
twine  about  you  to  hold  you  back  from  even  the  one  day's  march.  So, 
when  I  hear  those  blamed  who  stop  short  still  of  where  I  think  they 
ought  to  be,  I  want  to  say,  have  you  any  idea  of  what  it  has  cost  them 
to  go  so  far  as  that,  and  whether  it  was  possible  for  them  to  go  any 
farther?  And  then,  is  it  not  a  good  thing  anyhow  to  take  those  who 
belong  to  them  the  one  day's  march,  and,  setting  their  faces  toward  the 
great  fair  land  of  promise,  leave  God  to  see  to  it,  that  this  which  may 
be  no  more  than  an  impulse  in  the  man  who  has  to  halt,  may  grow 
again  to  a  great  inspiration  in  the  son  of  his  spirit  and  life  who  goes 
right  on? 

And  this,  I  think,  is  what  we  may  count  on  in  every  honest  endeavor 
after  a  wider  and  better  life.  So  I  like  the  suggestion  that  the  way  the 
eagle  got  his  wings,  and  went  soaring  up  towards  the  sun,  grew  out  of 
the  impulse  to  soar.  That  the  wings  did  not  precede  the  desire  to  fly, 
but  the  desire  to  fly  preceded  the  wings.  Something  within  the  creat- 
ure whispered:  "Get  up  there  into  the  blue  heavens;  don't  be  con- 
tent to  crawl  down  in  the  marsh.  Out  with  you!"  And  so,  somehow, 
through  what  would  seem  to  us  to  be  an  eternity  of  trying — so  long  it 
was  between  the  first  of  the  kind  that  felt  the  impulse,  and  the  one 
that  really  did  the  thing,  done — it  was  at  last,  in  despite  of  the  very  law 
of  gravitation,  as  well  as  by  it;  and  there  he  was,  as  I  have  seen  him, 
soaring  over  the  blue  summits,  screaming  out  his  delight,  and  spreading 
his  pinions  twelve  feet,  they  said,  from  tip  to  tip. 

I  like  the  suggestion,  because  it  is  so  true  to  the  life  we  also  have  to 
live — trying  and  failing;  setting  out  for  Canaan,  and  stopping  at  Haran; 
intending  great  things,  and  doing  little  things,  many  of  us,  after  all.  I 
27 


410  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

tell  you  again,  the  good  intention  goes  to  pave  the  way  to  heaven,  if  it 
be  an  honest  and  true  intention.  There  is  a  pin- feather  of  the  eagle's 
wing  started  somewhere  in  our  starting — a  soaring  which  goes  far 
beyond  our  stopping.  "We  may  only  get  to  the  edge  of  the  slough,  but 
those  who  come  after  us  will  soar  far  up  toward  the  sun. 

So  let  me  end  with  a  word  of  cheer.  The  Moslem  says:  "God 
loved  Abdallah  so  well  that  He  would  not  let  him  attain  to  that  he  most 
deeply  desired/'  And  Coleridge  says:  "I  am  like  the  ostrich:  lean 
not  fly,  yet  I  have  wings  that  give  me  the  feeling  of  flight.  I  am  only 
a  bird  of  the  earth  but  still  a  bird."  And  Eobertson,  of  Brighton,  says: 
"  Man's  true  destiny  is  to  be  not  dissatisfied,  but  forever  unsatisfied." 

And  you  may  set  out  even  in  your  youth,  therefore,  with  this  high 
purpose  in  you  I  have  tried  to  touch.  You  will  make  your  way  to  a 
good  place,  a  wider  and  more  gracious  life,  do  a  great  day's  work,  rise 
above  all  mediocrity  into  a  distinct  nobility,  find  some  day  that,  though 
you  have  done  your  best,  you  have  fallen  far  below  your  dream,  and 
the  Canaan  of  your  heart's  desire  lies  still  in  the  far  distance.  All 
great  and  grand  things  lie  in  the  heart  of  our  strivings. 

Dr.  Collyer  has  the  poetic  instinct.  All  his  prose  is  but  another 
form  of  poetry. 

The  following  poem  is  from  the  Doctor's  fruitful  pen. 

A  PSALM  OF  THAXKSGIVDsG  AFTER  THE  GREAT  FIRE  OF  1871. 

O  Lord  our  God,  when  storm  and  flame 

Hurled  homes  and  temples  into  dust, 
"We  gathered  here  to  bless  Thy  name, 

And  on  our  ruin  wrote  our  trust. 

Thy  tender  pity  met  our  pain, 

Swift  through  the  earth  Thine  angels  ran, 

And  then  Thy  Christ  -appeared  again, 
Incarnate,  in  the  heart  of  man. 

Thy  lightning  lent  its  haughty  wing 

To  hear  the  tear-blent  sympathy, 
And  fiery  chariots  rushed  to  bring 
The  offerings  of  humanity. 

Thy  tender  pity  met  our  pain, 

Thy  love  has  raised  us  from  the  dust, 
We  meet  to  bless  thee,  Lord,  again, 

And  in  our  temples  sing  our  trust. 


SAM  JONES. 

PREACHER,  TALKER,  REFORMER  AND  WIT. 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

Samuel  Jones  was  born  in  Chambers  county,  Alabama,  October  16, 1847.  While 
a  child  his  parents  removed  to  Cartersville,  Barlow  county,  Georgia,  where  he  now 
resides,  near  Bill  Arp.  He  comes  from  a  church  family  and  from  a  family  of  preach- 
ers, four  of  his  uncles  having  been  clergymen.  His  father  was  a  brilliant  lawyer,  and 
his  mother  a  most  religious  woman.  The  seeds  of  religious  conviction  were  planted 
in  the  bosom  of  the  great  revivalist  by  his  mother,  and  Mr.  Jones'  veneration  for 
that  sainted  mother  crops  out  in  all  his  sermons.  Mr.  Jones  studied  law  with  his 
father,  and  began  his  law  practice  with  brilliant  prospects,  but  dissipation  drew  him 
away  from  his  work  and  well  nigh  eclipsed  his  talents. 

A  solemn  exhortation  from  Mr.  Jones'  father  on  his  death  bed  caused  him  to 
reform,  and  he  soon  afterward  married  Miss  Laura  McElwain,  of  Eminence,  Ky.,  a 
lovely  character,  who  still  cheers  his  life  in  his  good  work. 

From  a  lawyer  Mr.  Jones  became  a  traveling  Methodist  preacher  in  1872.  As  a 
revivalist  he  met  with  extraordinary  success,  until  he  attracted  the  attention  of  Rev. 
T.  DeWitt  Talmage,  who  employed  him  in  a  grand  revival  at  the  Brooklyn  Taber- 
nacle. 

Mr.  Jones'  first  great  revival  was  in  St.  Louis.  Here  J.  B.  McCullough,  the 
editor  of  the  Globe,  really  brought  the  great  preacher  out.  Mr.  McCullough  had  his 
sermons  reported  verbatim,  sometimes  filling  six  columns  of  the  Globe.  Mr.  McCul- 
lough is  a  good  Catholic,  and  his  generous  support  of  a  Protestant  clergyman  should 
be  appreciated  by  the  whole  Protestant  church  in  America. 

Mr.  Jones  uses  plain  language.  He  uses  the  every-day  language 
of  the  street.  Clergymen  who  bore  their  audiences  call  it  slang, 
but  Mr.  Jones  wins  souls  with  this  every-day  language.  Our  ortho- 
dox clergy,  seeing  his  works,  have  been  compelled  to  endorse  him. 

Mr.  Jones  is  sensational  and  so  was  Paul,  and  Peter  the  Hermit 
and  Gough  and  Beecher  and  Wendell  Phillips  and  Spurgeon,  and 
his  meetings  produce  intense  interest  and  he  always  reaps  an 
immense  harvest  of  converts  whom  he  turns  over  to  any  church  in 
the  fold  of  Christ. 

411 


412  SINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Sam  Jones  (he  prefers  to  be  called  plain  Sam  Jones)  preaches 
without  notes,  depending  upon  the  inspiration  of  the  moment. 

One  day,  while  in  conversation  with  the  great  revivalist,  I  asked 
him  how  he  could  preach  such  long  sermons,  night  after  night, 
without  notes  when  such  great  men  as  John  Hall,  Prof.  Swing, 
Storrs  and  Cuyler  always  read  their  sermons. 

"  It's  easy  enough,"  said  Sam,  "easy  enough  if  you  go  to  work 
in  the  right  way.  Now,"  he  continued,  "if  I  was  to  tell  my  serv- 
ant girl  to  go  to  the  shop  and  get  some  sugar  and  bluing,  some 
coffee  and  starch,  some  cakes,  some  soap  and  some  almonds,  some 
candles  and  spice,  some  nuts  and  some  tea,  some  potash  and  butter, 
she  would  say: 

" '  Oh  dear,  sir,  I  never  can  think  of  all  that.' 

"  But  suppose  I  should  say,  'look  here,  Betty,  you  know  to-mor- 
row your  mistress  is  going  to  have  a  large  wash,  and  she  will  want 
some  bluing  and  soap,  candles  and  potash;  the  next  day  she  will 
have  company,  and  will  want  some  tea  and  coffee,  sugar,  spice,  nuts, 
cakes,  butter  and  almonds.' 

"  '  Thank  you,  sir,'  says  Betty,  'now  I  can  think  of  them  all.' 

"So  it  is  in  preaching.  You  want  a  logical,  but  simple  arrange- 
ment." 

Sam  Jones  makes  a  great  deal  of  money  out  of  his  lectures,  but  not 
so  much  out  of  his  preaching;  still  he  has  very  little  love  for  money. 

"Are  you  saving  your  money?"  I  asked  the  revivalist,  one  day  on 
the  train. 

"  Saving  my  money!"  he  exclaimed,  "  What  for  ?  Why  a  man 
who  saves  money  is  a  miser.  Christ  didn't  have  a  bank  account. 
Josh  Billings  says  the  old  miser  that  has  accumulated  his  millions 
and  then  sits  down  with  his  millions  at  last,  without  any  capacity  for 
enjoying  it,  reminds  him  of  a  fly  that  has  fallen  into  a  half -barrel  of 
molasses.  There  you've  got  the  picture  just  as  complete  as  Josh 
Billings  ever  drew  a  picture. 

"No  sir,"  continued  Sam,  "I  never  had  much  money — never  will 
I  reckon.  I  saw  in  the  papers  some  time  ago  where  a  man  had  died 
in  North  Carolina  and  left  Sam  Jones  a  wonderful  legacy — and  all 
that  sort  of  thing.  I  was  at  home  at  the  time.  Several  of  my 
friends  ran  up  with  the  paper,  and  said : 

" '  Sam,  did  you  see  this  ?' 

"'Yes.' 


SAM  JONES.  413 

"  '  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?' 

" '  I  ain't  going  to  do  anything/ 

"'"Well,  I'd  write  on  and  tell  them  where  you  are.' 

" '  No  sir,'  said  I,  '  I  am  getting  on  right  well  without  a  legacy, 
and  God  knows  what  I'd  do  if  I  had  one.  I  am  getting  on  so  well 
without  one  that  I  don't  want  to  fool  with  one.' 

"Don't  you  see?  I  want  you  all  to  have  legacies  and  live  in 
fine  houses,  and  I  will  go  around  and  take  dinner  with  you,  and  let 
you  pay  the  taxes  and  servants,  and  I  will  enjoy  the  thing.  Don't 
you  see  ?  That  is  a  good  idea,  ain't  it? " 

"If  I  get  wealth  without  religion,"  continued  Sam,  thoughtfully, 
"  why,  I'll  be  poor  in  the  next  world.  Cornelius  Yanderbilt  was 
the  richest  man  that  ever  bade  America  good-bye,  and  stepped  into 
eternity.  He  turned  to  his  oldest  boy  and  passed  $75,000,000  into 
his  hands;  $25,000,000  additional  he  turned  over  to  the  rest  of  his 
heirs,  and,  then  in  his  last  moments,  turned  to  his  Christian  wife  and 
asked  her : '  Wife,  please  sing, 

"  Come,  ye  sinners,  poor  and  needy; 
Weak  and  wounded,  sick  and  sore.' " 

"  The  richest  man  that  America  ever  produced  asking  his  wife  to 
sing  the  song  of  a  beggar ! " 

I  do  not  think  there  is  a  man  living  who  can  use  as  strong  Eng- 
lish as  Sam  Jones,  or  rather,  as  strong  Saxon.  The  great  but 
pedantic  Dr.  Johnson  once  said,  speaking  of  one  of  Addison's 
essays :  "  There  is  not  virtue  enough  in  it  to  preserve  it  from  putre- 
faction." Sam  Jones  would  have  said  in  his  bold  Saxon :  "  There 
ain't  wit  enough  in  it  to  keep  it  sweet."  One  day,  when  the 
reporters  had  been  criticising  the  revivalist's  Saxon  language,  he 
became  indignant,  and  said : 

"  Do  you  want  my  opinion  of  these  reporters,  who  abuse  our 
meetings  ? " 

"Yes." 

"  "Well,  in  my  humble  opinion,  I  will  be  in  heaven  when  these 
stinking  miserable  little  reporters  who  malign  me  are  sitting  on  one 
ear  in  hell,  trying  to  keep  cool  by  fanning  themselves  with  the 
other." 

"  Do  they  ever  answer  back  to  you  from  the  audience  when  you 
talk  so  savagely  ? "  I  asked. 


414  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM . AND  PULPIT. 

"  Yes,  often.  Every  now  and  then  a  burnt  sinner  will  squeal. 
Sometimes  they  get  a  good  joke  on  me,  too.  One  day,  in  St. 
Louis,'*  continued  the  preacher,  laughing,  "  an  awful  funny  thing 
happened.  I  had  been  attacking  the  gamblers  and  drunkards  for 
an  hour,  and  I  said  a  drunkard  is  lower  than  a  dog.  '  Why,'  said  I, 
*  I've  seen  a  man  and  a  dog  go  into  a  saloon,  and,  in  an  hour,  the 
man  would  get  beastly  drunk,  and  stagger  out  like  a  hog,  while  the 
dog  would  come  out  and  walk  away  like  a  gentleman.' 

"Just  then  a  shabby,  blear-eyed  man  arose  tremblingly,  and 
started  to  leave  the  church. 

"  '  Stop !  young  man,'  I  said.     '  Stop ! ' 

"  The  young  man  stood  still,  with  a  thousand  eyes  on  him. 

"  'If  you'd  rather  go  to  hell  than  hear  me  preach,  just  go  on !' 

" '  Well,'  replied  the  man,  after  a  pause,  '  I  believe  I'd  rather.' 
And  out  he  went. 

"  Ha  !  ha !  ha  !  "  chuckled  Sam,  "  it  was  a  good  one,  wa'nt  it  ? 

"The  very  next  night,"  continued  the  preacher,  "  I  saw  the  same 
man  in  the  audience.  By  and  by  I  saw  him  standing  up. 

"  '  Well,'  said  I,  kindly,  '  what  do  you  want,  my  man  ? ' 

" '  I  want  to  know,  Elder,  if  you  think  you  can  get  the  devil  out 
of  me  ? ' 

"• '  O,  yes,'  I  said,  *  but  I  don't  think  it  would  improve  you  any. 
The  little  left  would  be  worse  than  the  devil.' 

"  I  suppose  you  learn  a  good  deal  from  your  audiences  ?"  I  sug- 
gested. 

"  Oh,  yes.  A  good  old  Christian  lady  rose  one  night  and  said 
she  had  got  repentance. 

"  '  Do  you  know  what  true  repentance  is,  mother  ? '  I  asked. 

" '  Yes.  It  is  being  sorry  for  your  meanness  and  feeling  that 
you  ain't  going  to  do  it  any  more.' 

" '  That's  the  best  definition  of  repentance  I  ever  heard  in  my 
life  mother,'  I  said.  '  That  is  repentance.  Good  Lord,  I  am  so 
sorry  for  my  meanness  that  I  don't  intend  to  do  it  any  more.  And 
now  mother,'  said  I,  '  Do  you  know  what  true  religion  is  ?' 

" '  Yes.' 

" '  What  ? ' 

" '  It's  this,'  said  the  old  lady :  *  If  the  Lord  will  just  forgive  me. 
for  it,  I  won't  want  to  do  it  any  more.' 

"  '  Right  mother ! '  said  I.  '  There  is  repentance  and  religion  in 
a  nutshell,  so  every  man  in  the  world  can  get  hold  of  it.' ': 


SAM  JONES.  415 


.SAM  JONES'S  GREATEST  SERMON. 

THUNDER  AND  LIGHTNING  ON   SINNERS'  HEADS. 

Brothers  and  Sisters : — I  don't  care  so  much  about  my  text  as  I  do 
about  my  sermon,  but  did  you  ever  see  such  a  string  of  pearls  as  this 
text — such  a  monosyllabic  utterance  ? 

Let — your — light — so — shine — before — men — that — they— may— see— your— good 
— works — and — glorify — your — Father — which — is — in — Heaven. 

I  have  frequently  gone  into  a  community,  and  while  there,  I  have 
kicked  the  bushel  off  a  great  many  men's  lights,  and  they  would  fall  out 
with  me  and  say  I  put  their  light  out.  And  I  didn't.  Their  light  had 
gone  out  over  ten  years  before,  when  they  went  and  turned  that  bushel 
down  over  it.  It  went  out  the  minute  they  turned  that  bushel  over 
it.  Sometimes  it  is  the  bushel  of  neglect.  Sometimes  it  is  the  bushel 
of  willful  transgression.  Sometimes  it  is  the  bushel  of  avarice.  And 
there  are  a  thousand  bushels  that  will  be  furnished  you  at  any  time  you 
want  one  to  turn  down  over  your  light.  And  at  any  moment,  if  you  put 
a  bushel  over  your  light — if  your  light  was  burning  and  you  have  taken 
and  turned  a  bushel  and  put  over  it — you  will  find  your  light  is  out. 
And  don't  be  foolish  enough  to  think  that  the  man  that  removed  the 
bushel  put  your  light  out.  It  was  the  bushel  turned  down  over  it  that 
put  the  light  out. 

Never  mind  about  other  people's  lights.  Look  after  your  own  light. 
Some  clergymen,  instead  of  shedding  their  own  light  by  preaching 
Christ,  are  looking  after  Tom  Paine  and  Ingersoll — looking  after  false 
lights.  [Applause.] 

Who  cares  about  Bob  IngersolFs  infidelity,  or  who  cares  about  any 
body  else's  infidelity?  The  difference  between  Ingersoll  and  the  church- 
man is  that  the  man  in  church  believes  every  thing,  and  won't  do  any- 
thing, while  Bob  Ingersoll  is  a  sort  of  theoretical  infidel,  who  gets  $1,500 
a  night,  for  being  one,  and  you  dead  Christians  here,  like  fools,  are  one 
for  nothing  and  board  yourselves.  That's  all  there  is  about  it. 
[Laughter.] 

Church  members  should  let  their  lights  shine  by  their  actions.  Win 
the  sinner  by  love.  A  worldly  man  recently  entered  one  of  the  churches 
in  Indianapolis,  and  was  allowed  to  stand  fifteen  minutes  in  the  aisle. 
Then  he  walked  around  to  another  aisle.  No  Christian  offered  him  a 
seat.  By  and  by,  after  he  got  tired  out  standing,  he  leaned  over  to  a 
brother  who  had  his  light  under  a  bushel,  and  ventured  to  inquire: 

"  What  church  is  this  ?" 


416  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Christ's  church,  sir  —  Christ's,"  said  the  church  member,  impa- 
tiently. 

"  Is  he  in?"  asked  the  man,  meekly.     [Laughter.] 

The  churchman  left  his  light  under  the  bushel,  and  went  and  got  the 
stranger  a  seat.  He  was  so  mad  about  it  that  when  he  got  back  to  his 
bushel,  the  light  was  out.  [Laughter.] 

How  many  Christians  here  to-night  have  put  out  their  light? 

Many  clergymen,  instead  of  making  Christ  shine,  are  trying  to  shine 
themselves.  Their  sermons  are  not  to  save  sinners,  but  they  are  made 
to  win  the  praise  of  men.  They  read  well,  but  they  don't  save  souls. 

The  good,  old  colored  sexton  in  Memphis  jumped  up  one  day,  and 
said: 

' '  Brethren,  I've  been  hearing  this  book  preaching  for  years.  Our 
pastors  don't  put  the  fodder  down  low  enough.  I  went  to  see  our 
preacher  in  his  study,  this  morning,  and  he  had  six  books  open  before 
him.  I  said  to  him: 

"  '  Brother,  if  you  get  one  sermon  out  of  six  oooks,  you  are  going  to 
put  that  fodder  up  where  I  can't  reach  it,  and  where  a  great  many  others 
can't  reach  it,  and  we  will  all  go  in,  Sunday  morning,  hungry,  and  come 
out  starving  —  starving  for  Christ's  plain,  simple  food/*  [Applause.] 

And  that's  a  fact.  Every  one  can  reach  a  thing  when  it  is  on  the 
ground,  and  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  believe  it  is  the  Christly  way  to 
find  a  common  level  and  stand  on  that  level  to  preach  to  the  masses. 
And  if  you  see  me  drop  down  at  all  while  I  am  here,  you  may  know  that 
I  am  seeking  a  level  and  that's  all  the  meaning  there  is  in  it  at  all.  If 
you  see  my  style  don't  exactly  suit  you,  and  the  grammar,  and  rhetoric 
and  logic  are  a  little  butchered,  I  am  just  endeavoring  to  adapt  my  style 
to  my  crowd;  don't  forget  that,  and  I'll  find  your  level  before  I  leave 
you.  [Laughter.] 

I  want  a  man  to  do  every  thing  in  earnest. 

If  I  see  a  young  lawyer,  instead  of  pouring  over  Blackstone,  spend- 
ing his  evenings  in  saloons  or  flirting  with  girls  along  the  street  it  don't 
need  the  tongue  of  a  prophet  to  say  that  fellow  will  never  get  but  one 
case  and  the  sheriff  will  get  his  client.  [Laughter.] 

I  see  a  young  fellow  starting  out  to  be  a  doctor.  I  see  him  loitering 
away  his  time  and  spending  his  evenings  in  parties,  and  paying  no  atten- 
tion to  physiology  and  anatomy  and  hygiene,  and  so  forth.  I  turn 
around  and  I  can  see  what  you  will  be.  You  will  hare  but  one  patient, 
and  the  undertaker  will  get  him  next  day,  and  that  will  wind  up  your 
practice.  [Laughter.] 


SAM  JONES.  41T 

I  see  a  preacher  starting  out.  He  never  looks  in  a  book,  never 
thinks,  never  studies;  he  is  going  to  open  his  mouth  and  let  the  Lord 
fill  it.  Well,  the  Lord  does  fill  a  fellow's  mouth  as  soon  as  he  opens  it, 
but  He  fills  it  with  air.  [Laughter.]  And  there's  many  an  old  air-gun, 
going  through  this  country  professing  to  be  a  preacher.  [Laughter.]  I 
thave  listened  to  some  men  preaching  an  hour,  and  they  didn't  say  one 
hing  in  the  hour;  and  I  got  perfectly  interested  seeing  how  the  fellow 
could  dodge  every  idea  in  the  universe  and  talk  an  hour.  [Laughter.] 
I  just  watched  him.  That  kind  of  preaching  is  worse  than  book 
preaching. 

I  see  a  farmer  the  first  three  months  of  the  year,  instead  of  cleaning 
out  his  fence  corners  and  repairing  his  fences  and  turning  his  land  and 
being  just  as  energetic  and  active  in  January  as  he  is  in  May — instead 
of  that  he  is  loitering  around  doing  nothing.  I  don't  need  any  tongue 
of  the  prophet  to  tell  how  he  will  come  out  farming.  I  have  seen  him 
down  South.  I  have  watched  him,  and  I  have  told  him  before  he  started 
in  how  he  would  come  out,  too.  Said  I:  "  I'll  tell  you  what  will  happen 
to  you.  You'll  buy  you  corn  from  the  West;  you  put  in  forty  acres  to- 
the  old  mule;"  and  said  I,  "before  the  year  is  out  the  grass  will  have 
your  cotton,  and  the  birds  will  have  your  wheat,  and  the  buzzards  will 
have  your  mule,  and  the  sheriff  will  have  you  [laughter];  and  that's 
about  where  you'll  wind  up."  Didn't  mean  any  thing — that's  the  trou- 
ble. [Laughter.] 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  when  I  see  a  young  lawyer  pouring  over  his 
books  day  after  day,  and  night  after  night  he  burns  the  midnight  oil, 
and  I  see  the  blood  fading  from  his  cheek,  and  his  eyes  growing  brighter 
every  day,  I  don't  need  the  tongue  of  the  prophet  to  tell  you  there  will 
be  one  day  a  judge  of  the  supreme  court;  that  there  will  be  one  day  one 
of  the  finest  lawyers  that  America  ever  produced. 

You  let  me  watch  a  fellow  the  first  three  months  after  he  joins  the 
church,  I  can  tell  you  whether  he  means  business  or  not.  I  see  him  begin 
to  stay  out  of  hi-:  prnyer  meetings,  and  begin  to  neglect  his  duty,  and  begin 
to  think  that  he  has  got  more  religion  than  he  wants,  and  he'll  run  the 
rule  of  subtraction  or  division  through  it,  instead  of  the  rule  of  addition, 
and  I  know  just  about  where  he'll  land  at.  You  are  there  now.  [Laugh- 
ter.] When  I  see  a  man  come  into  the  church  of  God  Almighty,  and 
he  feels  like  "I'm  going  to  take  every  chance  for  the  good  world,  I'm 
going  to  get  all  the  good  out  of  every  thing  that  comes  my  way,  or  comes 
within  a  mile  of  me,  or  ten  miles  of  me,"  and  I  see  him  do  his  best,  and 
at  his  place,  and  he  is  drawing  in  from  all  sources  in  heaven  and  earth, 
and  I  see  that  man  as  he  begins  to  move  forward  in  his  church,  and 


418  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

begins  to  be  one  of  the  pillars  in  church  —  I  don't  mean  p-i-1-l-o-w-a— 
you've  got  a  great  many  of  this  sort  of  pillars  in  your  churches  in  this 
town,  good  old  cases  for  others  to  crawl  in,  and  lay  their  heads  on,  and 
go  to  sleep;  that  sort  of  pillows!  downy  fellows!  [Laughter.] 

If  I  had  children  who  would  not  read  a  book,  and  would  not  be  inter- 
ested in  any  thing  that  ought  to  be  interesting  to  intelligent  beings,  I 
would  learn  them  all  to  play  cards.  [Laughter.]  The  little  simpletons, 
I  would  run  them  on  that  line.  [Laughter.]  If  I  had  a  daughter  who 
was  such  a  simpleton  that  she  had  only  just  sense  enough  to  behave  her- 
self, I  would  send  her  to  a  hook-nosed  French  dancing-master  [laugh- 
ter], and  I  would  tell  him  to  make  her  graceful,  and  "if  *her  head  is  a 
failure,  I  want  you  to  make  it  up  on  the  feet."  [Renewed  laughter.] 
The  law  of  com  pensation,  of  checks  and  balances,  ought  to  work  here, 
ought  it  not?  I  would  say  to  the  hook-nosed  Frenchman:  "  Bring  her 
feet  up  right.  She  is  a  failure  in  her  head."  I  would  learn  her  to  dance 
gracefully,  and  marry  her  off  to  some  ball-room  dude,  and  buy  them  a 
place  away  off  in  the  country,  and  tell  them  never  to  come  and  see  me. 
When  I  got  anxious  to  see  them,  I  would  take  her  mother,  and  go,  and 
see  them.  [Laughter.] 

Of  course,  this  is  irony,  for  I  should  never  have  such  children,  and 
you  all  know  that  I  am  opposed  to  dancing. 

I  was  sitting  in  a  train  some  time  ago,  and  the  train  rolled  up  to  the 
station,  and  just  up  on  the  platform,  near  by,  were  three  ladies.  One 
of  the  ladies  said  to  the  other: 

"Are  you  going  to  the  ball  to-night?" 

"No,  I'm  not  going,"  was  the  reply. 

"  Oh,  I  forgot.  You  Methodists  don't  go  to  such  places,  Pshaw! 
J  wouldn't  be  a  Methodist;  I  want  to  enjoy  myself." 

"  Well,"  said  her  friend,  "I  am  a  Methodist — thank  God —  and  I 
don't  want  to  go  to  such  places." 

"No  Methodism  for  me!"  and  then  the  train  rolled  off,  and  I  felt 
like  jumping  on  the  top  of  that  train  myself  and  hollering,  "Hurrah  for 
Methodism!"  [Laughter.]  And  whenever  she  goes  into  co-partnership 
with  ball-rooms  and  with  all  of  the  worldly  amusements  that  embarrass 
the  Christian  and  paralyze  his  power — whenever  the  Methodist  Church 
goes  into  co-partnership  with  these  things,  I  will  sever  my  connection 
with  her  forever.  And  I  love  her  and  honor  her  to-day  because  she  has 
stood  like  a  bulwark  against  these  things,  and  denounced  them  from 
first  to  last. 

"  Oh,"  but  you  say,  "I  don't  believe  in  Puritanism.  I  don't  believe 
in  that.  I  believe  the  Lord  means  us  to  enjoy  ourselves  a  little." 


SAWJONZS.  419 

Yes,  that  is  the  way  I  used  to  talk. 

"Why  don't  the  Lord  want  us  to  dance?  There  ain't  no  harm  in 
that,"  you  say. 

I  tell  you,  I  can  go  to  houses — houses  morally  dark  and  morally 
degrading  as  perdition  itsell — and  I  can  look  at  that  poor,  lost  woman 
and  ask  her,  "Where  did  you  take  your  first  downward  step  to  death 
and  hell?" 

"At  a  ball  room,"  she  says. 

There  is  not  a  family — I  speak  it  because  I  believe  it — there  is  not  a 
family  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis  where  the  father  who  trains  his  children 
for  ball  rooms  and  germans  can  lay  his  hands  upon  the  head  of  his 
daughter  and  say  :  "This  daughter  will  die  as  pure  as  an  angel."  You 
can  not  say  it.  Other  men's  daughters  as  pure,  as  lovely  as  yours,  have 
been  down  with  the  devil's,  feet  on  them — and  a  woman  never  gets 
up  when  the  devil  puts  his  feet  on  her  once!  Submission  to  Christ — 
there  is  the  test. 

Imagine  Christ  dancing. 

I  never  saw  a  spiritual  man  in  my  life  who  would  stand  up  and  ask 
me,  "Do  you  think  there  is  any  harm  in  the  dance?"  Why  don't  you  ask 
me  if  I  think  there  is  any  harm  in  a  prayer  meeting,  or  I  think  there  is 
any  harm  in  family  prayer?  You  know  there  ain't.  And  whenever  you 
hear  a  fellow  asking  if  there  is  any  harm  in  the  dance,  you  can  reply, 
"You  lying  old  rascal,  you  know  there  is."  [Laughter  and  applause.] 

Mr.  Jones,  turning  to  the  ministers  seated  behind  him,  asked,  "Why 
don't  you  say  Amen?"  [Renewed  laughter  and  applause.] 

That  young  man  says,  "I  would  join  the  church,  but  I  love  to  dance." 
That  young  lady  says,  "  I  would  join  the  church  but  I  love  to  dance." 
Well,  young  lady,  go  on.  We  will  say  that  you  go  to  two  hundred 
balls — that  is  a  big  allowance,  ain't  it? — and  that  you  dance  hundreds  of 
sets.  By  and  by  you  die  without  God  and  without  hope,  and  down  into 
the  flames  of  despair  you  go  forever;  and  as  you  walk  the  sulphurous 
streets  of  damnation  you  can  tell  them:  "  I  am  in  hell  forever,  it  is  true, 
but  I  danced  four  hundred  times,  I  did."  [Laughter.]  Now,  won't 
that  be  a  consolation? 

What  do  you  want  to  dance  for,  young  lady;  what  use  is  it  to  you? 
If  I  had  to  marry  a  dozen  times — and  I  am  like  the  Irishman  who  said 
he  hoped  he  would  not  live  long  enough  to  see  his  wife  married  again, 
[laughter]  if  I  had  to  marry  a  dozen  times,  I  would  never  go  to  a  ball- 
room to  get  my  wife.  I  used  to  dance  with  the  girls,  but  when  I  wanted 
to  marry  I  did  not  go  to  the  ball-room  to  get  my  wife.  A  fellow  might 
possibly  get  a  good  one  in  the  ball-room,  but  many  a  fellow  hasn't. 


420  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

[Laughter.]  God  gives  a  man  a  good  wife  but  he  gets  a  bad  one  from 
the  devil,  and  he  has  to  go  where  that  devil  is  to  get  her.  [Renewed 
laughter.] 

What  good  does  it  do  you  to  be  able  to  dance?  Take  the  best  girl  in 
this  town  after  her  family  is  reduced  to  a  fearful  crisis  by  her  father's 
business  reverses.  Now  they  are  poor  and  that  girl  must  earn  a  living. 
I  will  introduce  her  to  a  dozen  of  the  leading  citizens  of  the  town,  and 
give  her  a  worthy  recommendation  in  every  respect.  She  is  just  what 
every  body  would  want  as  a  music  teacher,  as  a  clerk  or  in  any  other 
capacity,  but  I  will  add  as  a  postscript  to  the  recommendation,  "she  is 
a  first-class  dancer,"  [laughter]  and  that  will  knock  her  out  of  every 
job  she  applies  for  in  this  world.  And  so  with  every  sin.  And  I 
declare  to  you  to-night  that  the  thing  that  keeps  us  away  from  God  and 
out  of  the  church,  that  is  the  price  we  put  on  our  soul. 

Then  there  is  the  man  who  wants  to  drink. 

He  says:  "I  would  be  religious  if  it  were  not  for  so  and  so/'  and  I 
never  think  of  this  without  thinking  of  an  incident  in  which  a  husband 
sat  by  his  wife  at  a  revival  meeting.  "When  the  penitents  were  asked  to 
come  to  the  altar,  he  was  asked  by  his  wife:  "  Come,  won't  you  give 
yourself  to  God?"  He  shook  his  head  and  went  home. 

That  night  she  said  to  her  husband,  "  I  saw  you  were  affected.  I 
wish  you  had  given  your  heart  to  God! " 

He  said:  "Wife,  I  can  not  be  a  Christian  in  the  business  I  am  in." 

She  said:  "I  know  that." 

He  was  a  liquor  dealer. 

And  she  added:  "  Husband,  I  want  you  to  give  up  your  business  and 
give  your  heart  to  God." 

"  Oh,  wife,  I  can't,"  he  said,  "I  can't  afford  it." 

"Well,  husband,"  she  said,  "how  much  do  we  clear  every  year  on 
whisky?" 

"We  clear  $2,000  a  year,  my  darling." 

"But  how  long,  husband,  shall  we  live  to  run  this  business?" 

"Twenty  years,  and  then  well  have  140,000." 

"Forty  thousand  dollars!  Now,  my  darling  husband,  if  we  could 
get  $40,000  all  in  a  lump,  would  you  sell  vour  soul  to  hell  for  that  sum? 
Would  you?" 

"No,  wife,"  he  said.  "No,  no!  no! !  I'll  close  out  my  business  in 
the  morning  and  111  give  my  heart  to  God,  right  now.  I  would  not  sell 
my  soul  for  four  million  dollars!"  .[Applause.] 

Christ  will  save  us  if  we  follow  Him;  God  will  shield  us  if  we  trust 
in  Him. 


SAM  JONES.  421 

I  learned  a  great  lesson  in  my  relations  toward  God  in  a  little  incident 
that  happened  at  my  own  home.  "We  had  in  our  employ  a  colored  serv- 
ant girl  nursing  for  us.  She  was  rather  a  careless,  indifferent  servant. 
I  was  sitting  in  the  room  one  morning,  just  after  breakfast,  and  this  girl 
walked  in  and  my  wife  said: 

"  Sally,  you  can  go  to  your  home  this  morning,  and  tell  your  mother 
to  come  over  after  awhile  and  I  will  pay  your  wages  to  her.  I  don't 
want  you  any  longer,  Sally,  you  may  go. " 

I  looked  up  from  my  book  and  the  girl  stood  there,  full  face  toward 
my  wife,  and  the  tears  commenced  running  down  her  cheek,  and  directly 
she  turned  to  my  wife  and  she  says: 

"  Mrs.  Jones,  please  ma'am,  don't  turn  me  off.  I  know  I'm  the 
poorest  servant  you  ever  had,  but  I  don't  want  to  be  turned  off.  Please 
ma'am  keep  me." 

I  commenced  to  beg  for  the  poor  girl,  and  said:  "Wife,  bear  with 
her  a  little  while  longer."  And  then  I  thought  to  myself:  "If  the 
Lord  Jesus  were  to  come  down  this  morning  and  discharge  me  and  tell 
me,  '  I  don't  want  you  any  longer,' I  would  fall  down  at  His  feet  and  say: 
Blessed  Savior,  don't  turn  me  off.  I  know  I'm  the  poorest  servant  you 
ever  had,  but,  blessed  Christ,  keep  me  in  Thy  life  employ.'" 

Oh,  blessed  Christ!  So  good  to  us!  So  merciful  to  us!  But  we 
must  stand  by  God  if  we  expect  Him  to  stand  by  us.  We  must  stand  as 
firm  as  old  Daniel  did.  They  got  after  Daniel,  you  know,  and  said: 

"If  you  don't  stop  prayin'  to  God  and  go'toprayin'  to  the  king,  he'll 
put  you  down  in  the  lions'  den." 

"  Let  them  do  what  they  please,"  said  Daniel,  and  down  he  went  on 
his  knees  and  the  next  minute  he  went.  He  knew  that  if  he  did  wrong 
he  would  go  to  hell;  if  he  did  right  he'd  go  to  heaven.  God  went 
down  with  him  into  the  den,  and  the  first  thing  Daniel  knew  a  big  lion 
went  to  sleep  and  Daniel  stretched  himself  by  his'side,  and,  pillowing 
his  head  on  the  shaggy  mane  of  the  brute,  said:  "This  beats  hell."  I 
choose  to  serve  God,  forever,  and  I  stand  in  no  fear  of  kings.  [Laughter.] 

Now,  don't  criticise  me;  I'm  doing  the  best  I  can.  Don't  find  fault 
because  there  is  an  occasional  laugh.  I  don't  care  what  a  man  does 
while  I'm  skinning  him;  if  he  laughs,  it  is  all  right.  But  if  you  will 
hold  while  I  skin  the  price  of  hides  will  go  down,  I  assure  you  of  that. 

I  was  getting  on  a  railroad  train  some  months  ago  in  my  State,  and  a 
gentleman  boarded  the  train  at  one  of  the  stations,  and,  after  shaking 
hands  and  talking  a  moment,  I  asked  him  the  news. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "nothing  special,  I  believe,  except  I  came  very 
near  being  killed  last  night." 


422  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"Row  was  that?"  I  asked. 

Said  he:  "  The  agent  at  the  depot  in  our  town  was  lying  on  the  plat- 
form of  the  depot,  drunk.  He  had  been  drunk  several  days.  I  went 
up  to  him  to  help  him  into  the  depot,  and  when  I  did  so,  he  jerked  out 
his  pistol  and  shot  at  me  twice,  and  came  very  near  hitting  me." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  agent  at  the  depot  in 
your  town  had  been  drunk  for  several  days?  Why,"  said  I,  "the  officers 
of  this  road  are  very  strict  with  their  employes.  How  is  it  this  man 
maintains  his  position  if  he  drinks  that  way?" 

" I  can't  tell  you,  sir,"  said  the  gentleman,  "only  this  man,  this 
agent,  is  brother-in-law  to  the  president  of  the  road." 

Well,  when  he  said  that,  I  saw  it  all  in  a  moment,  and  then  I  said  to 
myself:  "How  is  it  God  puts  up  with  me  as  He  does?  How  is  it  God 
has  borne  with  me  as  He  has?"  And  I  found  the  answer  is  this:  Not  be- 
cause God  was  my  brother-in-law,  but  because  God  was  my  father;  and 
isn't  it  astonishing  how  God  will  bear  with  His  children? 

Let  your  light  so  shine — but  bridle  your  tongues  ?  0,  how  much 
damage  our  idle  tongues  have  done  ! 

Husband,  how  often  have  you  wronged  your  wife  with  your  tongue  ? 
Wife,  how  often  have  you  stabbed  your  husband  by  a  hasty  word  ! 
Mother,  how  often  has  your  child  winced  and  shrunk  away  from  you 
under  the  merciless  power  of  your  tongue  ? 

The  prettiest,  whitest  tombstone  I  ever  saw,  and  the  prettiest  epi- 
taph I  ever  read  was  when  I  visited  an  old  friend  in  Georgia.  He  said 
he  had  lost  the  best  wife  a  man  ever  had,  and  he  led  me  out  to  the 
little  white  tombstone.  There  were  only  a  few  words  on  it — the  date  of 
her  birth  and  her  death — and  then,  underneath,  this  one  line : 

"She  made  home  pleasant." 

Of  all  the  places  in  the  world,  home  should  be  the  most  pleasant ; 
but  this  can  never  be  without  bridled  tongues.  The  wife,  as  she  bends 
over  that  pale,  waxen  face,  cries  out  in  the  agony  of  her  heart,  ''Hus- 
band, precious,  forgive  those  unkind  words."  The  husband,  as  he 
stands  by  the  coffin  and  looks  upon  the  last  remains  of  his  wife,  cries 
out,  "  Good  Father,  forgive  every  unkind  word  I  uttered."  My  inno- 
cent little  child  runs  into  my  study,  where  I  sit,  worn  out  with  writ- 
ing. It  is  little  five-year-old  Bob,  or  perhaps  four-year-old  Laura,  and  he 
gathers  my  arm  and  scatters  the  ink.  Then  I  turn  around  and  say  : 

"Oh,  you  little  brat !"  or  "You  mischievous  little  wretch,  get  out 
of  here!" 

He  straightens  up  with  a  look  of  surprise,  turns  around  and  walks 
out  of  the  room.  I  try  to  go  ahead  with  my  work,  but  I  don't  write 


SHE  MADE  HOME  HAPPY. 


See  page  422. 


SA3f  JONES.  423 

five  lines.  I  say,  "  He  didn't  think.  I  will  hunt  him  up  and  beg  his 
pardon."  I  go  out  on  the  back  porch  and  there  I  find  little  Bob  crying 
as  if  his  heart  would  break.  I  take  him  up  in  my  arms  and  say,  "For- 
give me,  my  little  pet ;  I  didn't  think."  And  the  little  one  sobs  out  : 

"  Mamma  told  me  not  to  bother  you,  but  I  forgot.  I  ask  you  to  for- 
give me." 

0,  if  you  want  to  be  received  into  the  inner  kingdom,  you  must 
have  a  converted  tongue. 

Oh,  these  tongues  of  ours  !  These  tongues  of  ours  !  We  Methodists 
pour  the  water  on,  and  the  Presbyterians  sprinkle  it  on,  and  the  Bap- 
tists put  us  clean  under,  but  I  don't  care  whether  you  sprinkle,  or  pour, 
or  immerse,  the  tongue  comes  out  as  dry  as  powder.  Did  you  ever  see 
&  baptised  tongue?  [Laughter.]  Say,  did  you?  [Laughter.]  Did 
you  ever  see  a  tongue  that  belongs  to  the  church  ?  You  will  generally 
find  the  tongue  among  man's  reserved  rights.  [Laughter.]  There 
come  in  some  reservations,  and  always  where  there  is  a  reservation  the 
tongue  is  retained.  The  tongue  !  The  tongue  !  The  tongue  !  Pam- 
bus,  one  of  the  middle-age  saints,  went  to  his  neighbor  with  a  Bible  in 
his  hand  and  told  him,  "I  want  you  to  read  me  a  verse  of  Scripture 
every  day.  I  can't  read,  and  I  want  you  to  read  to  me."  So  the  neigh- 
bor opened  the  Bible  and  read  these  words: 

I  will  take  heed  to  my  ways  that  I  sin  not  with  my  tongue. 

Pambus  took  the  book  out  of  his  hand  and  walked  back  home,  and 
about  a  week  after  that  the  neighbor  met  him,  and  he  said  : 

"  Pambus,  I  thought  you  were  to  come  back  and  let  me  reao.  you  a 
passage  of  Scripture  every  day  ?  "  and  Pambus  said  : 

"  Do  you  recollect  that  verse  you  read  to  me  the  other  day  ?" 

"  No,"  said  the  neighbor. 

"  Well,"  said  Pambus,  "I  will  quote  it : 

I  will  take  heed  to  my  ways  than  I  sin  not  with  my  tongue. 

"And,"  he  said,  "  I  never  intend  to  learn  another  passage  of  Script- 
ure until  I  learn  to  live  that  one." 

.  Oh,  me!     If  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  this  house  to-night 
would  go  away  from  here  determined  to  live  that  passage  of  Scripture." 

Once  in  Jerusalem  a  great  crowd — it  was  1,800  years  and  more  ago 
as  the  legend  goes,  or  the  allegory — a  great  crowd  was  gathered  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  they  were    gathered   around   a    dead  dog,  and  they  stood 
and  looked,  and  one  of  them  said: 

"That  is  the  ugliest  dog  I  ever  saw."    Another  said:     "Oh,  he  is 
not  only  the  ugliest  dog  I  ever  saw,  but  I  don't  believe  his  old  hide  is 
worth  taking  off  him."    Another  said:     "Just  look  how  crooked  his 
28 


424  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

legs  are."  And  so  they  criticised  the  poor  dog.  And  directly  one 
spoke  up  and  said,  "Ain't  those  the  prettiest,  pearly  white  teeth  you 
ever  looked  at?  "  And  they  walked  off  and  said,  "  That  must  have  been 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  that  could  have  found  something  good  to  say  about  a 
dead  dog."  Oh,  me!  I  like  those  people  that  always  like  to  see  some- 
thing kind  in  people  in  their  ways  and  walks  of  life.  As  bad  as  we  are 
maybe,  Jesus  will  see  some  thing  good  in  us. 

Down  South  before  the  war  we  used  to  put  a  nigger  on  the  block 
and  sell  him  to  the  highest  bidder.  Sometimes  he  would  run  away  and. 
we  could  not  get  him  on  the  block,  but  we  would  sell  him  on  the  run, 

"  How  much  for  him  running  away." 

Well,  brother,  when  God  Almighty  turned  this  world  over  to  Jesus 
Christ  he  turned  it  over  on  the  run,  running  away  from  God.,  running 
away  to  hell  and  death,  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  came  as  swift  as  the 
morning  light  and  overtook  this  old  world  in  her  wayward  flight,  threw 
His  arms  around  her  and  said: 

"  Stop,  stop,  let  us  go  back  to  God.     Let  us  go  back." 

Oh,  Jesus  Christ,  help  every  man  here  to  say:  "  I  will  go  back.  I 
have  strayed  long  enough.  I  will  go  back  now."  Will  you,  brother? 
God  help  every  man  to  say,  "This  night  I  have  taken  my  last  step  in. 
the  wrong  direction,  and  have  turned  round."  That  is  just  T,vhut  God 
wants  sinners  to  do — to  turn  round— to  turn  round.  Will  you  to-night 
say,  "God  being  my  helper,  I  will  stop.  I  will  turn  my  attention  to 
Heavenly  things  and  eternal  things.  I  will  look  after  my  sou \,  if  I 
starve  to  death."  Will  you  do  that? 

Now  we  are  going  to  dismiss  this  congregation,  and  those  who  wish, 
to  retire  can  do  so,  but  I  hope  those  who  are  not  Christians  will  remain, 
and  if  you  are  a  Christian  and  want  to  help  us,  remain  with  us.  Le.',  u» 
make  this  Friday  night  a  night  of  preparation  for  a  higher  and  a  belter 
life.  Let  one  hundred  of  us  say:  "I  want  to  prepare  to  enter  the 
church  on  Sunday  morning."  If  there  is  any  man  interested  in  his  s<  il 
let  him  stay  and  talk  and  pray  with  us  to-night. 


"MRS.   PARTINGTON.' 

THE  AMERICAN  MRS.  MALAPROP. 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

Benjamin  P.  Shillaber,  born  in  New  Hampshire,  1814,  was  a  printer  at  Dover, 
New  Hampshire,  in  1830,  and  in  1835  went  to  Demerara,  Guiana,  as  a  compositor,  and 
remained  there  three  years.  From  1840  to  1847  he  was  in  the  printing  office  of  the 
Boston  Post,  and  after  that  time  for  three  years  was  connected  with  the  same  papei 
editorially.  It  was  at  this  period  that  he  wrote  under  the  name  of  "Mrs.  Parting- 
ton,"  and  gained  a  reputation  as  a  humorist  by  the  quaintness  of  his  style  and  mat 
ter.  Between  1850  and  1852  he  tried  his  hand  at  newspaper  proprietorship  in  the 
Pathfinder  and  Carpet-Bag,  but  returned  to  the  Post  1853  56.  From  1856  he  was  foi 
ten  years  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Boston  Saturday  Evening  Gazette.  He  has  pub- 
lished "  Rhymes  with  Reason  and  Without;"  "Poems;"  "Life  and  Sayings  of  Mrs. 
Partington;"  "Knitting  Work,"  and  other  volumes. 

No  American  has  caused  more  delight  to  his  countrymen  than 
Benjamin  P.  Shillaber.  He  is  the  American  "  Yellow  Plush,"  but 
Thackeray's  Yellow  Plush  papers  never  began  to  cause  the  laughter 
— innocent  laughter,  that  Mrs.  Partington's  sayings  have. 

During  the  preparation  of  this  book,  Mr.  Shillaber  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  Mr.  Bok,  which  will  go  down  as  the  most  authentic- 
history  of  his  nom  de  plume: 

My  Dear  Mr.  Bok: — The  beginning  of  the  Partington  paragraphs  was  something: 
like  the  loss  of  Silas  Wegg's  leg,  "in  an  accident."  There  was  no  intention  or  pre- 
meditation in  the  matter,  and  the  result  was  a  great  surprise  to  me.  It  was  at  a  time 
when  steamers  twice  a  month  brought  news  from  Europe,  and  one  arrival  brought 
the  intelligence  that  breadstuffs  had  advanced  in  price.  This  was  the  occasion  for  a 
three-line  paragraph,  which,  I  think,  I  "set  up"  without  writing,  stating  that  "Mrs. 
Partington  said  that  it  made  no  difference  to  her  whether  the  price  of  flour  increased 
or  not,  as  she  always  had  to  pay  just  so  much  for  half  a  dollar's  worth."  The  name 
was  not  chosen,  but  it  came  with  a  sudden  memory  of  Sydney  Smith's  dame  who 
mopped  back  the  Atlantic  when  it  overflowed  into  her  cottage  at  Sidmouth.  I  had 
no  intention  of  aught  beyond  the  moment.  Flattered  by  the  success  of  this  virgin 
effort,  which  was  copied  everywhere,  I  tried  it  again,  with  like  success,  and  what  was 
begun  in  a  sportive  moment  became  a  sort  of  point  d'appui  for  many  things  latent  in 

425 


426  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

my  inkstand,  until  the  little  one  became  a  thousand.  I  was  surprised  to  find  that 
Mrs.  Partington  was  a  bona  fide  name,  and  1  regretted  that,  under  the  circumstances, 
I  had  not  taken  another,  but  it  had  grown  into  public  favor,  and  could  not  be  changed 
without  being  abandoned  altogether,  and  therefore  was  continued  until  the  offense 
became  mountainous.  I  justified  it  to  myself  by  laying  the  original  blame  on  Sydney 
Smith,  to  whose  assumption  I  had  merely  given  "a  local  habitation  and  name"  on 
this  side  of  the  water.  His  character,  however,  said  nothing;  mine  was  garrulous,  and 
that  is  all  the  story.  B.  P.  SBTLLABER. 


THE  PARTINGTON  LECTURE. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — It  was  with  strong  emotion  of  wonder 
that  Mrs.  Partington  read  in  the  papers  that  a  new  wing  was  to  be 
added  to  the  Cambridge  Observatory. 

"What  upon  airth  can  that  be  for,  I  wonder?  I  dare  say  they  are 
putting  the  new  wing  on  to  take  more  flights  arter  comics  and  such  things; 
or  to  look  at  the  new  ring  of  the  planet  Satan — another  link  added  to 
his  chain,  perhaps,  and,  gracious  knows,  he  seems  to  go  father  than  ever 
he  did  before/' 

She  stopped  to  listen  as  the  sounds  of  revelry  and  drunkenness  arose 
upon  the  night  air;  and  she  glanced  from  her  chamber,  over  the  way, 
where  a  red  illuminated  lantern  denoted  "Clam  Chowder."  Why  should 
she  look  there  just  at  that  moment  of  her  allusion  to  Satan?  What  con- 
nection could  there  be,  in  her  mind,  between  Satan  and  clam-chowder? 
Nobody  was  present  but  Ike,  and  Isaac  slumbered. 

Mrs.  Partington  was  in  the  country  one  August;  and  for  a  whole 
month  not  one  drop  of  rain  had  fallen.  One  day  she  was  slowly  walking 
along  the  road,  with  her  umbrella  over  her  head,  when  an  old  man,  who 
was  mending  up  a  little  gap  of  wall,  accosted  her,  at  the  same  time 
depositing  a  large  stone  upon  the  top  of  the  pile. 

"Mrs.  Partington,  what  do  you  think  can  help  this 're  drought?" 

The  old  lady  looked  at  him  through  her  spectacles,  at  the  same  time 
smelling  a  fern  leaf. 

"I  think,"  said  she  in  a  tone  of  oracular  wisdom,  "I  think  a  little 
rain  would  help  it  as  much  as  anything."  It  was  a  great  thought.  The 
old  gentleman  took  off  his  straw  hat  and  wiped  his  head  with  his  cotton 
handkerchief,  at  the  same  time  saying  that  he  thought  so  too. 

"Does  Isaac  manifest  any  taste  for  poetry,  Mrs.  Partington?"  asked 
the  schoolmaster's  wife,  while  con  versing  on  the  merits  of  the  youthful 
Partington. 

The  old  lady  at  the  time  was  basting  a  chicken  which  her  friends  had 
sent  her  from  the  country. 


MRS.  PARTINGTON.  437 

"Oh,  yes!"  she  said,  smiling;  "he  is  very  partially  fond  of  poultry, 
and  it  always  seems  as  if  he  can't  get  enough  of  it." 

The  old  spit  turned  by  the  fire-place  in  response  to  her  answer,  while 
the  basting  was  going  on. 

"I  mean,"  said  the  lady,  "does  he  show  any  of  the  divine  afflatus." 

The  old  lady  thought  a  moment. 

"As  for  the  divine  flatness,  I  don't  know  about  it.  He's  had  all  the 
complaints  of  children;  [laughter]  and,  when  he  was  a  baby,  he  fell 
and  broke  the  cartridge  of  his  nose;  but  I  hardly  think  he's  had  this 
that  you  speak  of."  [Laughter.] 

The  roasting  chicken  hissed  and  spluttered,  and  Mrs.  Partington 
basted  it  again. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  Mrs.  Jinks,  doctor?"  asked  Mrs.  Parting- 
ton  as  Dr.  Bohn  passed  her  house.  She  had  been  watching  him  for  half 
an  hour  through  a  crack  in  the  door,  and  people  who  saw  the  end  of  a 
nose  thrust  through  the  crack  stopped  a  moment  to  look  at  it. 

"She  is  troubled  with  varicose  veins,  madam,"  replied  the  doctor, 
blandly. 

"Do  tell!"  cried  the  old  lady.  "Well,  that  accounts  for  her  very 
corse  behavior.  If  one  has  very  corse  veins  what  can  you  expect?  Ah, 
we  are  none  of  us  better  than  we  ought  to  be  and " 

"Good  morning,  mem,"  broke  in  Dr.  Bohn,  as  he  turned  away  and 
the  old  lady  closed  the  door. 

"No  better  than  we  ought  to  be!  " 

What  an  original  remark  on  the  part  of  the  old  lady,  and  how  candid 
the  admission!  The  little  front  entry  heard  it,  and  the  broad  stair  that 
led  to  the  chamber  heard  it,  and  Ike  heard  it,  as  he  sat  in  the  kitchen 
daubing  up  the  old  lady's  Pembroke  table  with  flour  and  paste,  in  an 
attempt  to  make  a  kite  out  of  a  choicely-saved  copy  of  the  Puritan 
Recorder.  "We  are  no  better  than  we  ought  to  be" — generally. 

"  If  there  is  any  place  where  I  like  to  ransact  business  in,"  said  Mrs. 
Partington,  "it  is  in  a  bank.  There  is  no  beatin'  down  there.  All  you 
have  to  do  is  to  put  your  bill  on  the  counter  and  they  exonerate  it  at 
once." 

"Speaking  of  intemperance,"  said  the  old  lady,  solemnly,  with  a 
rich  emotion  in  her  tone,  at  the  same  time  bringing  her  hand,  contain- 
ing the  snuff  she  had  just  brought  from  the  box,  down  upon  her  knee, 
while  Lion,  with  a  violent  sneeze,  walked  away  to  another  part  of  the 
room,  "intemperance  is  a  monster  with  a  good  many  heads,  and 
creeps  into  the  bosoms  of  families  like  any  conda  or  an  alligator,  and 
destroys  its  peace  and  happiness,  forever." 


428  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFOBM  AND  PULPIT. 

"But,  thank  Heaven/'  she  continued,  a  "new  Erie  has  dawned 
upon  the  world,  and  soon  the  hydrant-headed  monster  will  be  over- 
turned! Isn't  it  strange  that  men  will  put  enemies  into  their  mouths  to 
steal  away  their  heads?" 

"Don't  you  regard  taking  snuff  as  a  vice?"  we  asked,  innocently. 

"If  it  is,"  she  replied,  with  the  same  old  argument,  "it's  so  small  a 
one  that  Providence  won't  take  no  notice  of  it;  and,  besides,  my  oil  fac- 
tories would  miss  it  so!" 

Ah,  kind  old  heart,  it  was  a  drunkard's  argument!     [Applause.] 

When  they  were  talking  about  Vesuvius,  the  old  lady  said,  "La  me  ! 
Why  don't  they  give  it  sarsaparilla  to  cure  its  eruptions  ?"  [Laughter.] 

The  old  lady  says  that  she  "intended  the  concert  of  the  Female  Cem- 
etery last  evening,  and  some  songs  were  extracted  with  touching  pythag- 
oras."  She  declares  "the  whole  thing  went  off  like  a  Pakenham  shot, 
the  young  angels  sung  like  syrups,"  and,  during  the  showers  of  applause, 
she  remembered  she  had  forgot  her  parasol. 

When  a  friend  spoke  of  suffering  the  agonies  of  death,  the  old  lady 
interrupted  her  :  "La  me  !"  she  said,  "here  I  have  been  suffering  the 
bigamies  of  death  for  three  mortal  weeks.  First  I  was  seized  with  a 
bleeding  phrenology  in  the  left  hampshire  of  the  brain,  which  was 
exceeded  by  a  stoppage  of  the  left  ventilator  of  the  heart.  This  gave  me 
an  inflammation  in  the  borax,  and  now  I'm  sick  with  the  chloroform  mor- 
bus.  There's  no  blessing  like  that  of  health,  particularly  when  you're 
sick!"  [Laughter.] 

Speaking  of  statues,  the  old  lady  says  she  prefers  the  Venus  de  Med- 
icine to  any  other  statute  she  knows  of. 

"  Here's  Dr.  Johnson's  Dictionary,"  said  Mrs.  Partington,  one  day, 
as  she  handed  it  to  Ike  ;  "study  it  contentively,  and  you  will  gain  a  great 
deal  of  inflammation."  [Laughter.] 

"Overland  roots  from  India ! "  said  the  old  lady,  on  hearing  the 
Indian  news  read.  "  Bless  me! "  she  exclaimed,  "  those  must  be  the  roots 
they  make  the  Indian  meal  of  ! " 

They  were  talking  about  the  right  of  suffrage,  when  Mrs.  Partington 
overheard  them,  and  remarked: 

"How  these  men  talk  about  exercising  their  right  of  suffering!  As 
if  nobody  in  the  world  suffered  but  themselves!  They  don't  know  of 
our  sufferings.  We  poor  creturs  must  suffer  and  say  nothing  about  it, 
and  drink  cheap  tea,  and  be  troubled  with  the  children  and  the  cows,  and 
scrub  our  souls  out;  and  we  never  say  a  thing  about  it.  But  a  man 
comes  on  regularly  once  a  year,  like  a  Farmer's  Almanac,  and  grumbles 


MRS.  PARTING  TON.  429 

about  his  sufferings;  and  it's  onjy  then  jest  to  choose  a  governor,  after 
all.  These  men  are  hard  creturs  to  find  out." 

This  was  intended  as  a  lesson  to  Margaret,  who  was  working  Char- 
lotte and  Werter,  on  a  blue  ground,  at  her  side;   but  Margaret  had  her 
own  idea  of  the  matter  and  remained  silent,  while  Ike  yelled  and  sang: 
I  wish  you  a  merry  Christmas 

And  a  happy  New  Year, 
With  your  stomach  full  of  money 
And  your  pocket  full  of  beer, 

as  he  skipped  into  Mrs.  Pardngton's  kitchen,  where  the  old  dame  was1 
busily  engaged  in  cooking  breakfast  on  Christmas  morning. 

"Don't  make  such  a  noise,  dear,"  said  the  kind  old  lady,  holding  up 
her  hand:  "  You  give  me  a  scrutinizing  pain  in  my  head,  and  your  young 
voice  goes  through  my  brain  like  a  scalpel-knife.  But  what  did  the 
.good  Santa  Cruz  put  into  your  stocking,  Isaac?"  And  she  looked  at  him 
with  such  an  arch  and  pleased  expression,  as  he  took  out  of  his  pocket  a 
jack-knife  and  a  hum-top  painted  with  gaudy  colors!  Ike  held  them  up, 
joyously;  and  it  was  a  sight  to  see  the  two  standing  there — she  smiling 
serenely  upon  the  boy's  happiness,  and  he,  grateful  in  the  possession  of 
his  treasures. 

"Ah!"  said  she,  with  a  sigh,  "there's  many  a  house  to-day,  Isaac, 
that  Santa  Cruz  won't  visit;  and  many  a  poor  child  will  find  nothing  in 
his  stocking  but  his  own  little  foot!" 

It  might  have  been  a  grain  of  the  snuff  she  took,  it  might  have  been 
a  fleeting  mote  of  the  atmosphere;  Mrs.  Partington's  eyes  looked  humid, 
though  she  smiled  upon  the  boy  before  her,  who  stood  trying  to  pull  the 
cord  out  of  her  reticule  to  spin  his  new  top  with. 

"People  may  say  what  they  will  about  country  air  being  so  good  for 
'em."  said  the  old  lady,  "  and  how  they  fat  upon  it;  for  my  part  I  shall 
always  think  it  is  owing  to  the  vittles.  Air  may  do  for  cammamiler  and 
other  reptiles  that  live  on  it,  but  I  know  that  men  must  have  something 
substantialer." 

The  old  lady  was  resolute  in  this  opinion,  conflict  as  it  might  with 
general  notions.  She  is  set  in  her  opinions,  very,  and,  in  their  expres- 
sion, nowise  backward. 

"  It  may  be  as  Solomon  says,"  said  she,  "'but  I  have  lived  at  the 
pasturage  in  a  country  town  all  one  summer,  and  I  never  heard  a  turtle 
singing  in  the  branches.  I  say  I  never  heerd  it,  but  may  be  so  too;  for 
I  have  seen  'em  in  brooks  under  the  tree,  where  they,  perhaps,  dropped 
off.  I  wish  some  of  our  great  naturalists  would  look  into  it."  With 
this  wish  for  light,  the  old  lady  lighted  her  candle  and  went  to  bed. 


430  KTNOS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"I  can't  believe  in  spiritous  knockings,"  said  Mrs.  Partington, 
solemnly,  as  a  friend  related  something  he  had  seen  which  appeared  very 
mysterious.  "  I  can't  believe  about  it ;  for  I  know,  if  Paul  could  come 
back,  he  would  envelop  himself  to  me  here,  and  wouldn't  make  me  run 
a  mile,  only  to  get  a  few  dry  knocks.  Strange  that  the  world  should  be 
so  superstitious  as  to  believe  such  a  rapsody,  or  think  a  sperrit  can  go 
knocking  about  like  a  boy  in  vacation !  I  don't  believe  it,  and  I  don't 
know's  I  could  if  that  teapot  there  should  jump  off  the  table  right 
afore  my  eyes."  She  paused;  and,  through  the  gloom  of  approaching 
darkness,  the  determined  expression  of  her  countenance  was  apparent.  A 
slight  movement  was  heard  upon  the  table ;  and  the  little  black  teapot 
moved  from  its  position,  crawled  slowly  up  the  wall  and  then  hung 
passively  by  the  side  of  the  profile  of  the  ancient  corporal.  The  old  lady 
could  not  speak,  but  held  up  her  hands  in  wild  amazement,  while  her 
snuff-box  fell  from  her  nervless  grasp,  and  rolled  along  on  the  sanded 
floor.  She  left  the  room  to  procure  a  light;  and,  as  soon  as  she  had 
gone,  the  teapot  was  lowered  by  the  invisible  hand  to  its  original  station; 
and  Ike  stepped  out  from  beneath  the  table,  stowing  a  large  string 
away  in  his  pocket  and  grinning  prodigiously. 

"  What  a  label  it  is  upon  the  character  of  Boston!"  said  Mrs.  Partirig- 
ton,  as  she  read  a  speech  on  the  liquor  bill,  that  reflected  on  Boston. 
"  There  is  no  place  where  benevolence  is  so  aperient  as  here.  For  my 
part,  I  don't  know  where  so  much  is  done  for  the  suffering ;  and  any  body 
can  see  it  that  can  read;  for  how  often  we  see  '  Free  Lunch'  in  the  win- 
dows of  our  humane  institutions!  [Laughter.]  You  never  see  such 
things  in  the  country,  as  much  better  as  they  think  themselves. 

"  I  think,"  said  Mrs.  Partington,  getting  up  from  the  breakfast  table, 
"I  will  take  a  tower,  or  go  upon  a  discursion.  The  bill  says,  if  I  collect 
rightly,  that  a  party  is  to  go  to  a  very  plural  spot,  and  to  mistake  of  cold 
collection.  I  hope  it  won't  be  so  cold  as  ours  was,  for  the  poor  last 
Sunday;  why,  there  wasn't  money  efficient  to  buy  a  foot  of  wood  for  a 
restitute  widder. 

"But  there  is  no  knowing  how  all  these  things  will  turn  out,  till  they 
take  place."  [Laughter.] 

Poor  old  lady  !  she  wasn't  thinking  of  this  lecture,  when  she  said : 
"We  shall  all  come  to  an  end  some  day,  though  we  may  never  live  to 
see  it."  [Laughter.] 


WHAT  IS  THE  MATTER  WITH  YOU,  MY  FRIEND? 


See  page  431. 


THE  "FAT  CONTRIBUTOR.' 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

A.  Miner  Griswold,  the  "Fat  Contributor,"  was  born  in  Pennsylvania  in  1837. 
"He  is  now  associated  with  Alexander  Sweet  in  the  editorship  of  Texas  Sifting*. 
Mr.  Sweet  has  made  humorous  reputations  on  three  newspapers,  and  is  one  of  our 
most  prolific  humorous  writers.  Mr.  Griswold  is  a  great  favorite  with  the  D.  K.  E 
•college  fraternity,  and  the  thousands  of  "  Delta  Kaps"  throughout  the  country  never 
have  a  convention  without  the  "Fat  Contributor"  to  make  them  happy.  There 
is  no  man  more  universally  loved  by  the  journalistic  fraternity  than  Griswold.  His 
genial  face  is  lighted  up  by  a  perpetual  smile.  He  is  married  to  a  beautiful, 
golden-haired  wife,  who  presides  gracefully  over  their  beautiful  home  in  New  York. 

Mr.  Griswold  often  tells  about  a  tramp  he  saw  on  a  New  York 
•door-step. 

He  was  tenderly  holding  his  head  in  his  hands  when  the  Fat 
•Contributor  came  along  and  thus  accosted  him : 

"  What's  the  matter  with  you  my  friend  ? " 

"I'm  in  doubt,  sir ;  I'm  in  a  state  of  doubt." 

"In  doubt?  What  about?"  asked  Griswold,  tenderly. 

"  Well,  sir,  I  went  into  that  alley  gate  up  there  to  get  suth'in  to 
eat ;  I  might  a-knowed  suth'in  'd  happened,  for  there  was  a  dead 
book  agent  lay  in'  on  the  flower  bed  and  a  liniment  man  with  the  side 
of  his  head  all  caved  in,  leanin'  up  again  the  peach  tree." 

"Well?" 

"  You  see,  I  all  us  was  venturesome ;  so  I  very  politeiy  stepped  up, 
and,  taking  off  my  hat  asked  a  woman  standin'  there,  would  she  be 
kind  enough  to  give  me  a  berry  pie  and  some  breast  of  chicken?" 

"  Well,  what  happened  then  ? " 

"Now,  Mr.  Griswold,  that's  what  I'm  in  doubt  about.  I'm 
thinking  it  over  now.  I  don't  seem  to  make  out  whether  I  got  the 
pie,  or  the  back  porch  fell  down  on  me,  or  perhaps  I  fell  asleep 
under  a  pile  driver.  I  don't  know  any  thing  about  it,  but,  to  give 

431 


432  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

myself  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  I  believe  I'd  sooner  work  half  an 
hour  than  go  into  that  yard  again.  I  would ! " 

A  Cincinnatian,  who  was  about  to  fail  in  business,  went  to  Gris- 
wold  and  asked  his  advice. 

"I'll  tell  you  how  it  is"  said  the  Fat  Contributor,  "you  can 
make  a  fortune  by  going  into  bankruptcy,  if  your  debts  are  only  big 
enough.  The  more  you  owe,  you  know,  the  more  you  make.  Do 
you  see  ? " 

"No;  I  don't  really  see  how  I  shall  make  money  by  losing  it," 
said  the  unfortunate  friend.  "  I  owe  enough,  the  Lord  knows,  if 
that's  all  you  want,  but  how  I'm  ever  to  pay  even  fifty  cents  on  the 
dollar  and  have  any  thing  left  to  commence  over  again,  is  one  of 
the  things  I  can't  see  into." 

"  But  you  don't  want  to  pay  your  debts,  man.  Well,  but  you 
are  a  green  'un — that  is  too  good.  Pay !  Ha !  ha !  "What  are  you 
going  to  fail  for?" 

"  Because  I  can't  help  it.     Now,  what  are  you  laughing  about  ? " 

"  I'm  laughing  because  you  don't  seem  to  understand  that  you 
can't  afford  to  fail  in  these  hard  times  unless  you  can  make  a 
snug  thing  out  of  it.  You  mustn't  plunge  headlong  into  ruin,  you 
know,  with  your  eyes  shut,"  said  brother  Griswold,  adjusting  his 
diamond  pin. 

"Mustn't  I?" 

"  No !  Never  do  in  the  world.  Have  your  wits  about  you,  and 
keep  your  head  clear.  Don't  let  the  trouble  worry  you  into  fog- 
ging your  brain  with  too  much  drink.  Wouldn't  do  it  at  all.  Keep 
you  eye  peeled  and  watch  for  the  main  chance." 

"  Yes — yes  ;  I  see.     But  how,  Mr.  Griswold — how  ? " 

"  Well,  first,  you  must  appoint  your  own  receiver,  and  be  sure  to 
select  the  stupidest  man  you  can  find.  Get  a  man  who  don't  know 
enough  to  drive  a  cow,  and  too  lazy  to  add  up  a  column  of  figures, 
even  if  he  knows  how.  If  you  can  find  an  ignoramus  that  can't 
read,  so  much  the  better.  Make  him  believe  there  ain't  hardly  any 
thing  to  divide,  and  you  can  buy  him  off  cheap." 

"  So,  ho,  that's  the  way,  is  it  ?    Go  on,  I'm  learning  fast." 

"If  the  man  you  get  is  green  enough  and  not  too  blamed  awk- 
ward to  stumble  onto  the  true  state  of  things  acidentally,  you  won't 
have  a  bit  of  trouble.  Divide  with  him  right  on  the  start,  and — " 

"  But  the  creditors — what  are  they  to  do  ? " 


TEE  FAT  CONTRIBUTOR.  433 

"Them?  The  creditors !  Oh  !  nevermind  them.  You  just  take 
care  of  yourself.  You  can't  take  care  of  everybody  when  you  fail ; 
but  take  care  of  yourself,  my  boy,  and  if  you  fail  often  enough 
you'll  die  a  millionaire.  I've  tried  it  myself,  you  know.  Look  at 
me !  Failed  eight  times,  and  now  I'm  president  of  two  savings 
banks,  and  to-morrow  I'm  going  to  endow  a  theological  seminary." 

And  Brother  Griswold  consulted  his  magnificent  stem-winder, 
and  said  it  was  about  time  to  go  in  and  join  Elder  Mines  and  Dea- 
con Skinner  to  arrange  about  the  $4,000  which  the  church  had  lent 
him  for  safe-keeping. 


THE  FAT  CONTRIBUTOR'S  LECTURE. 

HIS    PHILOSOPHICAL    DISQUISITION  OK  INJUN  MEAL. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen : — My  subject  is  Injun  Meal.  My  lecture  is  a 
scientific  treatise  on  the  American  Indian.  I  shall  treat  the  Indian 
fairly.  I  shall  not  treat  him  so  often  as  he  would  like,  but  I  will  treat 
Mm  honestly  and  scientifically,  with  no  humor  or  levity. 

It  is  comparatively  but  a.  few  years  ago  that  this  vast  continent,  now 
resonant  with  the  hum  of  commerce  and  manufactures,  and  radiant  in 
the  garb  of  civilization,  was  one  vast  forest  in  which  the  Indian  ruled 
supreme.  But  the  Indian  has  been  compelled  to  retire.  I  put  it  as 
mildly  as  possible,  out  of  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  any  sensitive 
savage  who  may  be  in  this  assembly  to-night  [laughter] — to  retire  before 
the  onward  march  of  civilization.  "He  has  been  compelled,"  in  the 
language  of  an  eloquent  Indian  orator,  "to  land  on  other  lands,  and  to 
olimb — other  climes" — and  I  might  add,  to  live — on  other  liver  !  Once 
he  wore  the  white  man's  scalp  at  his  belt,  but  now  the  white  man  '  belts 
him  over  the  scalp.'  He  has  followed  upon  the  scent  of  the  red  man, 
until  the  red  man  hasn't  a  red  cent. 

In  the  language  of  the  psalmist: 

Once  here  the  lone  Indian  took  his  delights 

Fished,  fit  and  bled; 
Now  most  of  the  inhabitants  is  whites 

With  nary  red. 

The  decline  of  the  American  Indian,  so-sudden  as  to  presage  his  early 
and  final  extinction,  was  due  to  a  combination  of  causes  which  I  will  not 
stop  to  enumerate.  They  are  too  well  known.  There  was  one,  however, 
to  which  I  must  allude,  more  potent  than  all  the  rest.  The  white  man 
introduced  it,  at  the  same  time  that  he  introduced  gunpowder,  but  it  lias 


434  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

proved  a  more  potent  destroyer  than  the  white  man's  bullet.  This  dread- 
ful scourge,  this  fearful  destroyer  of  the  Indians,  whose  victims  out- 
number those  destroyed  by  pestilence  and  war  combined,  was [here 

Mr.  Griswold  would  pause  in  a  perplexed  way,  striving  to  recall  the  name, 
then  he  would  draw  a  piece  of  paper  from  his  pocket,  adjust  his  eye- 
glasses and  scan  it  carefully  to  make  sure  of  no  mistake]  whisky  ! 
[Laughter.]  That  was  it.  Whisky  destroyed  the  Indians.  I  put  it 
down  so  that  I  would  remember  it.  [Laughter.]  And  any  man  will 
remember  It  if  he  puts  enough  of  it  down.  [Laughter.] 

The  Indians  took  to  whisky  with  a  readiness  that  can  hardly  be 
accounted  for  when  we  consider  how  many  years  they  had  been  without 
it.  In  an  incredibly  brief  period  of  time  after  the  discovery  of  America 
by  Columbus,  every  savage — of  any  pretentious  whatsoever — had  whisky 
on  his  sideboard  and  in  his  wine  cellar.'  [Laughter.] 

"Who?"  said  Logan,  in  that  eloquent  and  touching  speech  of  his,, 
delivered  before  one  of  the  early  Washingtonian  societies,  at  Washington^ 
"who  ever  entered  Logan's  cabin  hungry — and  didn't  get  a  drink!" 

The  Indians  were  not  given  to  poetry.  The  most  of  the  poetry  writ- 
ten by  the  Indians  has  been  found,  upon  careful  examination,  to  have- 
been  composed  by  white  people.  [Laughter.]  I  have  written  some 
very  beautiful  Indian  poetry  myself.  There  was  a  period  in  my  life 
when  I  didn't  seem  to  think  any  thing  of  thro  wing  off  a  poem — and  the 
public  didn't  seem  to  think  any  thing  of  it,  either!  [Laughter.] 

Some  years  ago,  while  editing  a  paper  in  the  far  West,  I  received 
some  verses  written  by  the  widow  of  a  celebrated  Indian  killer,  eulogiz- 
ing her  deceased  husband,  with  a  request  to  copy.  The  first  verse,  I 
remember,  ran  like  this — the  other  verses  walked.  [Laughter]: 

My  husband  he  was  galliant, 

My  husband  he  was  gay, 
And  when  he  took  a  warlike  stand 

The  Injuns  run'd  away. 
He  laugh'd  a  laugh  of  scornful  wrath 

To  see  the  cowards  flee 
With  their  high,  their  low,  their — 

Pum-a-diddle,  rip-a-tog-a — 
Rally-goggle,  jum-bo-ree!    [Laughter.] 

There  were  ninety-five  verses  in  all,  and  each  verse  had  a  like  satis- 
factory termination. 

The  Indian  ladies  were  not  of  a  literary  turn  of  mind.  They  didn't 
care  to  vote.  Not  being  literary  there  were  no  blue  stockings  among 
them.  In  fact  very  few  stockings — of  any  color  whatsoever.  They 


TEE  FAT  CONTRIBUTOR.  435 

were  not  passionately  fond  of  dress.  There  is  no  instance  on  record 
where  a  business  Injun — a  thorough  business  Injun — has  been  compelled 
to  make  an  assignment,  on  account  of  his  wife's  extravagance  in  dress. 
[Laughter.] 

The  diversions  of  the  Indians  were  of  the  most  innocent  and  cheerful 
description.  They  consisted  principally  in  running  the  gauntlet  and 
burning  gentlemen  at  the  stake.  I  think,  in  the  latter  case,  I  should 
prefer  to  have  my  steak  done  as  rare  as  possible. 

Running  the  gauntlet  is  an  ingenious  combination  of  the  gymnastic, 
calisthenic  and  acrobatic  exercises,  intensified  by  the  exciting  phases  of 
the  chase,  which  run  quite  through  it.  The  Indians  form  two  lines, 
between  which  the  culprit  is  to  run,  and  jocosely  brandish  sled  stakes, 
cleavers,  plow-handles,  bedstead  wrenches,  cistern  poles — and  other 
stuffed  clubs,  the  judicious  exercise  of  which  is  calculated  to  produce 
the  highest  muscular  development,  while  their  application  on  the  gentle- 
man under  treatment  has  the  most  exhilarating  effect. 

The  Indians  had  many  interesting  traditions ;  one  in  particular  I 
recall.  There  was  once  an  adventurous  young  Indian — a  sort  of  copper- 
colored  Christopher  Columbus — who,  before  the  discovery  of  America, 
wanted  to  get  up  an  expedition  to  discover  Europe.  [Laughter.]  He 
told  the  Indians  that  way  across  that  great  body  of  salt  water  was  an 
old  world,  and  assured  them  that  if  they  didn't  discover  it  pretty  soon, 
some  one  would  come  over  from  there  and  discover  them.  And  if  he 
had  succeeded  in  his  plan,  the  whole  current  of  emigration  would  have 
turned  from  America  to  Europe.  [Laughter.]  Indians  would  have 
gone  over  there,  planted  colonies  and  driven  out  the  white  men.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

He  claimed,  this  Indian  did,  that  by  taking  a  Cunard  steamer  and 
sailing  many  days — in  those  times  ocean  steamers  only  sailed  days ;  they 
tied  up  nights — he  would  reach  the  old  world,  to  the  perpetual  confusion 
of  Columbus. 

He  asked,  in  case  they  did  not  open  communication  with  Europe, 
how  they  could  expect  to  have  the  luxuries  of  the  East  here — such  as  the 
cholera — and  the  rinderpest  ?  He  advised,  among  other  things,  that  a 
ship-load  of  Indian  missionaries  accompany  the  expedition,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  introducing  the  principles  of  Indian  morality  in  sections  of  the 
old  world  corrupted  by  Eastern  civilization. 

In  the  midst  of  this  harangue,  news  was  telegraphed  to  the  Indians 
that  Columbus  had  come  [laughter]  and  the  red  man's  expedition  to  dis- 
cover Europe  came  to  an  untimely  end.  [Applause.] 


(But  ARP.) 


BILL  ARP. 


BIOGRAPHY  AND  REMINISCENCES. 

The  name  of  Major  Chas.  H.  Smith,  the  great  Southern  humorist,  whose  nom 
deplume  is  "  Bill  Arp,"  is  familiar  in  every  Southern  household.  He  was  born  in 
Gwinnett  county,  Georgia,  hi  1826.  His  father  came  to  Savannah  from  Massachu- 
setts and  his  mother  was  a  South  Carolinian.  Major  Smith  graduated  at  Athens 
university,  Georgia;  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1860,  and  then  gave  his  services  to  the 
State  in  the  late  war.  During  the  war  the  humorist  wrote  his  first  letter  from  the 
camp  in  Virginia,  afterwards  published  by  G.  W.  Carleton.  They  were  charming 
bits  of  humor,  and  Watterson's  Courier- Journal  said  of  his  letter  to  Artemus  Ward  in 
1865  :  "  It  is  the  first  chirp  of  any  bird  after  the  surrender,  and  gives  relief  and  hope 
to  thousands  of  drooping  hearts." 

Major  Smith  fought  bravely  on  the  Southern  side,  and  wrote  as  he  shot,  but 
when  the  surrender  came  he  ran  up  the  old  flag  from  the  gable  of  his  Cartersville 
palm  house,  dropped  his  sword,  seized  the  plantation  hoe  and  led  a  battalion  of 
negroes  in  the  field.  He  is  reconstructed  now,  and  no  man  loves  the  republic  more 
than  he. 

The  whole  life  of  "  Bill  Arp "  has  been  humorous,  and  no  man 
will  stop  hard  work  quicker  and  more  cheerfully  than  he  to  hear  a 
good  joke. 

When  I  asked  him  one  day  if  he  really  ever  killed  many  Yankees, 
he  said: 

"  "Well,  I  don't  want  to  boast  about  myself,  but  I  killed  as  many 
of  them  as  they  did  of  me." 

Speaking  of  pensions  one  day,  Mr.  Arp  said: 

"  Every  Yankee  soldier  ought  to  have  a  pension." 

"But  they  were  not  all  injured  in  the  army,  were  they?"  I 
asked. 

"Yes,  they  all  did  so  much  hard  lying  about  us  poor  rebels  that 
they  strained  their  consciences." 

Bill  Arp  tells  a  good  story  of  an  occurrence  in  New  York  when 
he  came  here  to  lecture  in  Chickering  Hall.  He  said  he  was  standing 

29  ** 


438  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFOPM  AND  PULPIT. 

on  the  steps  of  the  Astor  House,  one  afternoon,  with  a  friend,  when 
a  man  with  a  decidedly  military  bearing  hobbled  up. 

He  greeted  my  friend  as  he  passed. 

"  That's  a  fine  soldierly  lookin  g  chap,"  I  said. 

"  Yes ;  he's  a  veteran — Colonel  Jones,  of  the  G.  A.  R." 

" Did  he  lose  his  leg  on  the  battlefield? " 

"Yes;  at  Gettysburg." 

"  Ah!     Repelling  Pickett's  charge,  I  suppose." 

"  No ;  a  monument  fell  on  it." 

They  tell  this  story  in  Rome,  Georgia,  about  the  Major.  They 
say  that  in  the  summer  of  1863,  "  Bill  Arp"  was  in  the  Richmond 
hospital.  The  hospital  was  crowded  with  sick  and  dying  soldiers 
and  the  Richmond  ladies  visited  it  daily,  carrying  with  them  deli- 
cacies of  every  kind,  and  did  all  they  could  to  cheer  and  comfort 
the  suffering.  On  one  occasion  a  pretty  miss  of  sixteen  was  dis- 
tributing flowers  and  speaking  gentle  words  of  encouragement  to 
those  around  her,  when  she  overheard  a  soldier  exclaim:  "Oh,  my 
Lord  !" 

It  was  "  Bill  Arp." 

Stepping  to  his  bedside  to  rebuke  him  for  his  profanity,  she 
remarked:  "Didn't  I  hear  you  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  ?  I 
am  one  of  His  daughters.  Is  there  any  thing  I  can  ask  Him  for 
you?" 

Looking  up  into  her  bright,  sweet  face,  Bill  replied:  "  I  don't 
know  but  you  could  do  something  for  me  if  I  wasn't  married." 

"  Well,"  said  she,  "what  is  it?" 

Raising  his  eyes  to  hers  and  extending  his  hand,  he  said:  "As 
you  are  a  daughter  of  the  Lord,  if  I  wasn't  married,  I'd  get  you  to 
ask  Him  if  He  wouldn't  make  me  His  son-in-law/' 

Major  Andrews,  a  Yankee  captain,  was  telling  some  jolly  Rebs 
in  Georgia  about  his  experience  at  Bull  Run. 

"  The  only  time  that  I  ever  really  felt  ashamed  in  my  life  was  in 
that  Bull  Run  battle,"  said  the  major.  "  My  horse  fell  under  me, 
and  I  was  obliged  to  ride  an  army  mule  during  the  rest  of  the 
engagement,  and  he  finally  carried  me  clear  into  the  rebel  lines." 

"  Yes,  I  remember  the  incident  well,"  said  "Bill  Arp,"  who  was 
standing  by, "  I  found  that  mule  with  a  U.  S.  brand  on  him  the  next 
day  after  the  battle." 


FLOWERS  AND  WOBDS  OF  ENCOURAGEMENT. 


See  page  438. 


BILL  AEP.  439 

"  You  did,  really?"  said  the  major,  hardly  expecting  to  be  corrob- 
orated so  promptly.  "Where  did  you  find  him?"  asked  the  major. 

Bill  saw  that  there  was  a  door  wide  open  as  he  replied,  "  Stone 
dead  behind  a  rail  fence." 

"  Shot?" 

"No;  mortification." 

Bill  Arp  is  such  a  good  citizen  now,  and  so  loyal  to  the  republic, 
that  you  would  hardly  believe  how  zealous  he  was  for  the  Confed- 
eracy, in  '62. 

A  friend  of  mine,  Major  Munson,  had  charge  of  the  Dalton  dis- 
trict, in  Georgia,  when  the  humorist  surrendered.  It  was  a  hard 
thing  for  him  to  do  it,  and  it  took  a  week  or  two  to  come  down  to 
it,  but  he  finally  laid  down  his  sword.  As  Bill  delights  to  tell  good 
stories  on  the  Yankees,  I  can  not  resist  telling  the  story  of  his  final 
surrender,  as  Major  Munson  gave  it  to  me.  Of  course  the  major 
puts  in  the  Southern  dialect  a  little  stronger  than  Bill  uses  it  now, 
but  the  reader  must  remember  that  when  the  incident  occurred,  Bill 
was  still  unreconstructed : 

"Most  of  the  'Confeds'  came  in  very  quietly/'  said  the  major, 
44  ana  seemed  glad  to  have  the  thing  settled,  but  once  in  a  while  I 
struck  a  man  who  hated  to  come  unuer.  One  day  a  big,  handsome 
man  with  tangled  hair,  and  with  Virginia  red  mud  on  his  boots, 
came  in  to  talk  about  surrendering.  It  was  Bill  Arp. 

"'Dog  on  it,  sir,'  he  began  in  the  Georgia  dialect,  'I  have  come 
in,  sir,  to  see  what  terms  can  be  secured  in  case  I  surrender.' 

"'Haven't  you  surrendered  yet?'  I  inquired. 

" '  No,  sir !  Not  by  a  dog-on  sight !  I  said  I'd  die  in  the  last 
ditch,  and  I've  kept  my  word.' 

" '  "Whose  company  did  you  belong  to  ? ' 

" '  Belong !  Belong !  Thunderation !  I  didn't  belong  to  any  one's 
company !  Why,  sir,  I  fought  on  my  own  hook.' 

"'Where  was  it?' 

'"No  matter,  sir;  no  matter.  I  can't  be  crushed.  I  can  be 
insulted,  but  not  crushed.  Good  day,  sir.  I'll  see  the  United  States 
weep  tears  of  blood  before  I'll  surrender.  Haven't  a  card,  but  my 
name  is  Arp — Colonel  Bill  Arp.' 

"  He  went  off,  but  in  about  a  week  he  returned  and  began : 

" '  As  the  impression  seems  to  be  general  that  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy has  been  crushed,  I  called  to  see  what  terms  would  be 
granted  me  in  case  I  concluded  to  lay  down  my  sword.' 


440  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

" '  Unconditional  surrender,'  I  briefly  replied. 

" '  Then,  dog  on  it,  sir,  I'll  never  lay  it  down  while  life  is  left. 
The  cause  is  lost,  but  principle  remains.  You  can  inform  General 
Sheridan  that  Bill  Arp  refuses  to  surrender.' 

"  Colonel  Arp  returned  two  weeks  later.  He  seemed  to  have  had 
a  hard  time  of  it,  as  his  uniform  was  in  rags  and  his  pockets  empty. 

" '  Look  a-here,  Captain,'  he  said  as  he  came  in, 1 1  don't  want  to 
prolong  this  bloody  strife,  but  am  fo'ced  to  do  so  by  honor.  If 
accorded  reasonable  terms  I  might  surrender.  "What  do  you  say?* 

"  *  The  same  as  before.' 

" 'Then  you  are  determined  to  grind  us  to  powder,  eh ?  Sooner 
than  submit  I'll  shed  the  rest  of  my  blood  !  Send  on  your  armies, 
Captain — I  am  ready  for  'em ! ' 

"  Just  a  week  from  that  day,  Colonel  Arp  came  in  again,  said  he'd 
like  to  surrender,  drew  his  rations  with  the  rest,  and  went  off  in 
great  good  humor  to  his  Cartersville  farm." 


BILL  ARP'S  LECTURE! 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen : — Bill  Arp,  from  whom  I  got  my  now,  deplume 
and  Big  John  were  samples  of  the  rough,  uncultured  men,  in  the  newly 
settled  country  of  North  Georgia  and  North  Alabama.  Every  community 
had  such  men.  They  constituted  a  large  class  among  the  backwoodsmen 
of  the  South,  from  thirty-  to  forty  years  ago.  They  were  generally  poor 
and  uneducated,  and  they  enjoyed  life  more  than  they  enjoyed  money. 
They  were  sociable  and  they  were  kind.  When  one  was  sick  they  nursed 
him ;  when  he  died,  they  dug  his  grave  and  buried  him,  and  that  was 
the  end  of  the  chapter.  As  the  Scriptures  say  of  the  old  patriarchs, 
"And  Jared  lived  to  be  800  years  old  and  he  died."  There  is  no  other 
epitaph  or  obituary. 

A  little  farther  north  are  the  simple  mountaineers  of  East  Tennessee, 
and  their  kindness  and  generosity  is  only  exceeded  by  their  poverty. 
One  day  Eli  Perkins  says  he  was  riding  up  along  the  foot  of  the  Cumber- 
land mountains  in  East  Tennessee,  when  he  met  the  typical  East 
Tennessean  and  the  following  dialogue  ensued: 

"  Which  way  is  the  county  seat  ?"  asked  Eli : 

"  I  didn't  know,"  she  said,  with  a  look  of  wonderment,  "  that  the 
county  had  any  seat."  [Laughter.] 

"  What  is  the  population  of  your  county  ?" 


BILL  ARP.  441 

"  I  dun  no,"  said  the  old  lady,  chewing  her  snuff  stick,  "I  reckon  it's 
up  in  Kentucky."  [Laughter.] 

A  mile  farther  on,  the  same  writer  met  one  of  those  smoke-colored 
Tennesseans  and  his  wife.  Their  sole  possessions  seemed  to  be  a  brindle 
dog  and  a  snuff  stick. 

"  Got  any  whisky  about  yer  ?"  asked  the  old  clay-eater. 

"Whisky  is  a  deceitful,  dangerous  and  unhealthful  drink,"  said  Eli, 
"I'm  sorry  to  hear  you  ask  for  it." 

"  Whisky  ! !"  said  the  old  Tennessean,  "why,  whisky  stranger,  it's 
the  best  drink  in  the  world.  That's  what  saved  Bill  Fellers'  life." 

"But  Bill  Fellers  is  dead — died  five  years  ago," said  a  by-stander. 

"  That's  what  killed  him — didn't  drink  any  whisky.  Poor  Bill,  he 
never  knew  what  killed  him.  How  he  must  have  suffered."  [Laughter.] 

Then  there  was  a  middle  class,  who  owned  and  worked  their  own  farms 
and  built  churches  and  jails  like  civilized  people,  and  filled  them  with 
their  best  citizens.  They  were  good  Methodists  and  Baptists,  and  obeyed 
the  law — as  Webster  used  to  say,  re-spec-ta-ble  cit-i-z-e-n-s  ! 

But  there  was  still  another  class  that  more  signally  marked  the  people 
and  the  history  of  the  South — a  class  of  more  ambition  and  higher  cult- 
ure. The  aristocracy  of  the  South  was,  before  the  war,  mainly  an  aristoc- 
racy of  dominion.  The  control  of  servants  or  employes  is  naturally 
elevating  and  ennobling,  much  more  so  than  the  mere  possession  of  other 
property.  The  Scriptures  always  mention  the  number  of  servants,  when 
speaking  of  a  patriarch's  consequence  in  the  land.  This  kind  of  aristoc- 
racy brought  with  it  culture  and  dignity  of  bearing.  Dominion  dignifies 
a  man  just  as  it  did  in  the  days  of  the  centurion  who  said,  "  I  say  unto 
this  man  go,  and  he  goeth,  and  to  another  come,  and  he  cometh.'* 
Dominion  is  the  pride  of  a  man — dominion  over  something.  A  negro  is 
proud  if  he  owns  a  possum  dog,  and  can  make  him  come  and  go  at  his 
pleasure.  A  poor  man  is  proud  if  he  owns  a  horse  and  a  cow  and  some 
razor-back  hogs.  The  thrifty  farmer  is  proud  if  he  owns  some  bottom 
land  and  a  good  horse  and  top  buggy,  and  can  take  the  lead  in  his  country 
church  and  country  politics.  But  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  stock  aspires  to 
a  higher  degree  of  mastery.  They  glory  in  owning  men,  and  it  makes 
but  little  difference  whether  the  men  are  their  dependents  or  their  slaves. 
The  glory  is  all  the  same  if  they  have  them  in  their  power.  Wealthy 
corporations  and  railroad  kings  and  princely  planters  have  dominion  over 
their  employes,  and  regulate  them  at  their  pleasure.  It  is  not  a  dominion 
in  law, but  is  almost  absolute  in  fact,  and  there  is  nothing  wrong  or  oppress- 
ive about  it  when  it  is  humanely  exercised.  In  fact,  it  is  generally  an 
agreeable  relation  between  the  poor  laborer  and  the  rich  employer.  An 


442  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

humble,  poor  man,  with  a  lot  of  little  children  coming  on,  loves  to  lean 
upon  a  generous  landlord,  and  the  landlord  is  proud  of  the  poor  man's 
homage. 

The  genuine  Bill  Arp  used  to  say  he  had  rather  belong  to  Col.  John- 
son than  be  free,  for  he  had  lived  on  the  Colonel's  land  for  twenty  years, 
and  his  wife  and  children  have  never  suffered,  crop  or  no  crop;  for  the 
Colonel's  wife  threw  away  enough  to  support  them,  and  they  were  always 
nigh  enough  to  pick  it  up. 

He  was  asked  one  day  how  he  was  going  to  vote,  and  replied  :  "  I  don't 
know  until  I  ax  Colonel  Johnson,  and  I  don't  reckon  he  can  tell  me,  till 
he  sees  Judge  Underwood,  and  maybe  Underwood  won't  know  till  he 
hears  from  Alek  Stephens  but  who  in  the  dickens  tells  little  Alek  how 
to  vote  I'll  be  dogged  if  I  know." 

Those  simple  people  had.  their  courtings  and  matings.     They  had 
their  coon  hunts  and  country  parties,  that  the  aristocracy  farther  South 
knew  nothing  about.    They  used  to  have  a  unique  kissing  game  up  there 
in  the  mountains  that  they  still  keep  up  over  in  East  Tennessee. 
This  is  the  way  they  practiced  it: 

A  lot  of  big-limbed,  powerful  young  men  and  apple-cheeked,  buxom 
girls,  gather  and  select  one  of  their  number  as  master  of  ceremonies. 
He  takes  his  station  in  the  center  of  the  room,  while  the  rest  pair  off 
and  parade  around  him.  Suddenly  one  young  woman  will  throw  up  her 
hands  and  say : 

"I'm  a-pinin."    [Laughter.] 

The  master  of  ceremonies  takes  it  up  and  the  following  dialogue  and 
interlocution  takes  place : 

"Miss  Arabella  Jane  Apthorp  says  she's  a-pinin.  What  is  Miss  Ara- 
bella Jane  Apthorp  a-pining  fur?" 

"I'm  a-pinin'  fur  a  sweet  kiss." 

"Miss  Arabella  Jane  Apthorp  says  she's  a-pinin'  fura  sweet  kiss. 
Who  is  Miss  Arabella  Jane  Apthorp  a-pinin'  fur  a  sweet  kiss  frum." 

"  I'm  a-pinin'  fur  a  sweet  kiss  frum  Mr.  William  Arp."  (Blushes, 
convulsive  giggles  and  confusion  on  the  part  of  Miss  Arabella  Jane  Ap- 
thorp at  this  forced  confession.)  Mr.  William  Arp  now  walks  up  man- 
fully and  relieves  the  fair  Arabella's  pinin'  by  a  smack  which  sounds 
like  a  three-year  old  steer  drawing  his  hoof  out  of  the  mud.  [Laughter.] 

Then  a  young  man  will  be  taken  with  a  sudden  and  unaccountable 
pinin',  which  after  the  usual  exchange  of  questions  and  volunteered 
information,  reveals  the  name  of  the  maiden  who  causes  the  gnawin'  and 
pinin'.  She  coyly  retreats  out  doors,  only  to  be  chased,  overtaken,  cap- 
tured and  forcibly  compelled  to  relieve  her  captor's  distress. 


BILL  ARP.  443 

At  one  of  these  entertainments  which  it  was  the  narrator's  fortune 
to  attend,  there  was  a  remarkably  beautiful  young  woman,  who  had  been 
married  about  a  month.  Her  husband  was  present,  a  huge,  beetle-browed, 
black-eyed  young  mountaineer,  with  a  fist  like  a  ham.  The  boys  fought 
shy  of  the  bride  for  fear  of  incurring  the  anger  of  her  hulking  spouse. 
The  game  went  on  for  some  time,  when  symptoms  of  irritation  developed 
in  the  giant.  Striding  into  the  middle  of  the  room,  he  said  : 

"  My  wife  is  ez  pooty,  V  ez  nice,  'n'  sweet  ez  any  gyurl  hyah.  You 
uns  has  known  her  all  her  life.  This  game  hez  been  a-goin'  on  half  an 
hour,  an'  nobody  has  pined  fur  her  onct.  Ef  some  one  doesn't  pine  fur 
her  pooty  soon,  thar  will  be  trouble."  [Laughter.] 

She  was  the  belle  of  the  ball  after  that.  Every  body  pined  for  her. 
[Laughter.] 

The  dominion  of  the  old  aristocracy  of  the  South  was  not  over  their 
own  race,  as  it  was  at  the  North,  but  over  another,  and  it  was  absolute 
both  in  law  and  fact ; 

Hence  it  naturally  grew  into  an  oligarchy  of  slave-owners,  and  the 
poorer  whites  were  kept  under  the  ban.  There  was  aline  of  social  caste 
between  them,  and  it  was  widening  into  a  gulf,  for  the  poor  white  man 
could  not  compete  with  slave  labor,  any  more  than  the  farmer  or 
mechanic  can  now  compete  with  convict  labor,  in  the  hands  of  lessees. 
There  are  but  a  thousand  or  so  of  convicts  in  the  State  of  Georgia,  and 
this  does  not  amount  to  an  oppression;  but  there  were  two  hundred 
thousand  slaves,  and  the  poor  white  had  but  little  chance  to  rise  with 
such  formidable  foes.  This  kind  of  slave  aristocracy  gave  dignity  and 
leisure  to  the  rich  ;  and  Solomon  says,  that  in  leisure  there  is  wisdom  ; 
and  so  these  men  became  our  statesmen  and  jurists  and  law-makers,  and 
they  were  shining  lights  in  the  councils  of  the  nation ;  but  it  was  an 
aristocracy  that  was  exclusive,  and  it  shut  out  and  overshadowed  the 
masses  of  the  common  people,  like  a  broad  spreading  oak  overshadows 
and  withers  the  undergrowth  beneath  it. 

But  now  a  change  has  come!  There  are  only  two  general  classes  of 
people  at  the  South — those  who  have  seen  better  days  and  those  who 
haven't.  The  first  class  used  to  ride  and  drive,  but  most  of  them  now 
take  it  a-foot  or  stay  at  home.  Seventy-five  per  cent  of  them  are  the 
families  of  old  Henry  Clay  Whigs.  Thirty-five  years  ago  they  were  the 
patrons  of  high-schools  and  colleges,  and  stocked  the  learned  professions 
with  an  annual  crop  of  high-strung  graduates,  who  swore  by  Henry 
Clay  and  Fillmore  and  Stephens  and  Toombs  and  John  Bell  and  the 
Code  of  Honor.  They  were  proud  of  their  birth  and  lineage,  their 
wealth  and  culture,  and  when  party  spirit  ran  high  and  fierce  they 
banded  together  against  the  pretensions  of  the  struggling  democracy. 


444  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

When  I  was  a  young  man,  a  Whig  girl  deemed  it  an  act  of  amiable 
condescension  to  go  to  a  party  with  a  Democratic  boy.  But  the  wear  and 
tear  of  the  war,  the  loss  of  their  slaves,  and  a  mortgage  or  two  to  lift, broke 
most  of  these  old  families  up,  though  it  didn't  break  down  their  family 
pride.  They  couldn't  stand  it  like  the  Democrats,  who  lived  in  log 
cabins,  and  wore  wool  hats  and  copperas  breeches. 

I  speak  with  freedom  of  the  okl  Georgia  democracy,  for  I  was  one  of 
them.  The  wealth  and  the  refinement  of  the  State  was  in  the  main  cen- 
tered in  that  party  known  as  the  old-line  Whigs.  Out  of  160  students  in 
our  State  university,  thirty-five  years  ago,  130  of  them  were  the  sons  of 
Whigs.  I  felt  politically  lonesome  in  their  society,  and  was  just  going-, 
over  to  the  Whig  party,  when  I  fell  in  love  with  a  little  Whig  angel  who 
was  flying  around.  [Laughter.]  This  hurried  me  up,  and  I  was  just 
about  to  go  over  to  that  party,  when  suddenly  the  party  came  over  to 
me.  I  don't  know  yet  whether  that  political  somersault  lifted  me  up  or 
pulled  the  little  angel  down — but  I  do  know  she  wouldn't  have  me,  and 
at  last  I  mated  with  a  Democratic  seraph  who  had  either  more  pity  or 
less  discrimination.  She  took  me,  and  she's  got  me  yet;  she  surren- 
dered, but  I  am  the  prisoner.  [Laughter.] 

These  grand  old  gentlemen  of  the  olden  time  were  the  pioneers  in  all 
the  great  enterprises  of  their  day.  They  sowed  the  seed  and  we  are 
reaping  the  harvest.  They  -planted  the  trees  and  we  are  reaping  the 
fruit.  They  laid  the  foundations  of  the  proud  structure  of  our  Common- 
wealth, and  we  have  built  upon  it.  My  good  old  father  took  $5,000  of 
stock  in  the  Georgia  railroad  before  it  was  built.  He  kept  it  for  twelve 
years  without  a  dividend,  and  when  financial  embarrassment  overtook 
him,  the  stock  was  down  at  its  lowest  point,  and  he  sold  it  to  Judge 
Hutchins  at  $27  a  share.  There  was  a  gloom  over  the  family  that  night, 
but  I  tried  to  disperse  it,  for  I  told  them  that  I  had  just  made  a  matri- 
monial arrangement  with  the  judge's  daughter,  [laughter]  and  maybe 
the  stock  matter  would  come  out  all  right;  and  it  did.  I  got  it  all  back 
for  nothing,  and  the  judge's  lovely  daughter  to  boot,  and  it  was  the  best 
trade  I  ever  made  in  my  life. 

Most  of  these  old  families  are  poor,  but  they  are  proud.  They  are 
highly  respected  for  their  manners  and  their  culture.  They  are 
looked  upon  as  good  stock,  and  thoroughbred,  but  withdrawn  from  the 
turf.  Their  daughters  carry  a  high  head  and  a  flashing  eye,  stand  up 
square  on  their  pastern  joints,  and  chafe  under  the  bit.  They  come  just 
as  nigh  living  as  they  used  to  as  they  possibly  can.  They  dress  neatly  in 
plain  clothes,  wear  starched  collars  and  corsets,  and  a  perfumed  hand- 
kerchief. They  do  up  their  hair  in  the  fashion,  take  Godey's  Lady's  Book 


BILL  AEP.  445 

or  somebody's  bazar.  If  they  are  able  to  hire  a  domestic,  the  darky 
finds  out  in  two  minutes  that  free  niggers  don't  rank  any  higher  in  that 
family  than  slaves  used  to. 

The  negroes  who  know  their  antecedents  have  the  highest  respect 
for  them,  and  will  say  Mas'  William  or  Miss  Julia  with  the  same  defer- 
ence as  in  former  days.  One  would  hardly  learn  from  their  general 
deportment  that  they  cleaned  up  the  house,  made  up  the  beds,  washed 
the  dishes,  did  their  own  sewing  and  gave  music  lessons — in  fact,  did 
most  everything  but  wash  the  family  clothes.  They  won't  do  that.  I've 
known  them  to  milk  and  churn,  and  sweep  the  back  yard,  and  scour 
the  brass,  but  I've  never  seen  one  of  them  bent  over  the  wash-tub  yet, 
and  I  hope  I  never  will.  I  don't  like  to  see  any  one  reduced  below 
their  position,  especially  if  they  were  born  and  raised  to  it.  In  the  good 
old  times  their  rich  and  patriarchal  fathers  lived  like  Abraham,  Jacob 
and  Job.  They  felt  like  they  were  running  an  unlimited  monarchy  on 
a  limited  scale.  When  a  white  child  was  born,  it  was  ten  dollars  out  of 
pocket,  but  a  little  nigger  was  a  hundred  dollars  in,  and  got  fifty  dollars 
a  year  better  for  twenty  years  to  come. 

The  economy  of  the  old  plantation  was  the  economy  of  waste.  Two 
servants  to  one  white  person  in  slave  times  was  considered  moderate  and 
reasonable.  In  a  family  of  eight  or  ten — with  numerous  visitors  and  some 
poor  kin — there  were  generally  a  head  cook  and  her  assistant,  a  chamber- 
maid, a  seamstress,  a  maid  or  nurse  for  every  daughter  and  a  little  nig 
for  every  son,  whose  business  it  was  to  trot  around  after  him  and  hunt  up 
mischief.  Then  there  was  the  stableman  and  carriage  driver  and  the 
gardener  and  the  dairy  woman,  and  two  little  darkies  to  drive  up  the 
cows  and  keep  the  calves  off  while  the  milking  was  going  on.  Besides 
these  there  were  generally  half  a  dozen  little  chaps  crawling  around  or 
picking  up  chips,  and  you  could  hear  them  bawling  and  squalling  all  the 
day  long,  as  their  mothers  mauled  them  and  spanked  them  for  some- 
thing or  for  nothing  with  equal  ferocity.  This  was  the  paradise  of  Dixie. 
The  masters  were  happy,  and  so  were  the  slaves. 

But  the  good  old  plantation  times  are  gone — the  times  when  these 
old  family  servants  felt  an  affectionate  abiding  interest  in  the  family, 
when  our  good  mothers  nursed  their  sick  and  old  helpless  ones,  and 
their  good  mothers  waited  so  kindly  upon  their  "mistis,"  as  they  called 
her,  and  took  care  of  the  little  children  by  day  and  by  night. 

Our  old  black  mammy  was  mighty  dear  to  us  children,  and  we  loved 
her,  for  she  was  always  doing  something  to  please  us,  and  she  screened 
us  from  many  a  whipping.  It  would  seem  an  unnatural  wonder,  but 


446  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

nevertheless  it  is  true,  that  these  faithful  old  domestics  loved  their  mas- 
ter's children  better  than  their  own,  and  they  showed  it  in  numberless 
ways  without  any  hypocrisy.  Our  children  frolicked  with  theirs,  and 
all  played  together  by  day  and  hunted  together  by  night,  and  it  beat  the 
Arabian  Nights  to  go  to  the  old  darky's  cabin  of  a  winter  night  and 
hear  him  tell  of  ghosts  and  witches  and  jack-o'-lanterns  and  wild  cats 
and  graveyards,  and  we  would  listen  with  faith  and  admiration  until  we 
didn't  dare  look  around,  and  wouldn't  have  gone  back  to  the  big  house 
alone  for  a  world  full  of  gold. 

Bonaparte  said  that  all  men  were  cowards  at  night,  but  I  reckon  it 
was  these  old  niggers  that  made  us  so,  and  we  have  hardly  recovered 
from  it  yet. 

"When  I  used  to  go  a-courting  I  had  to  pass  a  graveyard  in  the 
suburbs  of  the  little  village,  and  it  was  a  test  of  my  devotion  that  I 
braved  its  terrors  on  the  darkest  night  and  set  at  defiance  the  wander- 
ing spirits  that  haunted  my  path.  Mrs.  Arp  appreciated  it  then,  for 
she  would  follow  me  to  the  door  when  I  left,  and  anxiously  listen  to 
my  retiring  footsteps.  But  now  she  declares  she  could  hear  me  running 
up  that  hill  by  the  graveyard  like  a  fast-trotting  pony  on  a  shell-road. 

It  was  a  blessed  privilege  to  the  boys  of  that  day  to  go  along  with 
the  cotton  wagons  to  Augusta,  or  to  Macon  or  Columbus,  and  camp  out 
at  night  and  hear  the  trusty  old  wagoners  tell  their  wonderful  advent- 
ures, and  it  was  a  glorious  time  when  they  got  back  home  again,  and 
brought  sugar  and  coffee  and  molasses  and  had  shoes  all  round  for  both 
white  and  black,  and  the  little  wooden  measures  in  them,  with  the 
names  written  upon  every  one. 

They  had  genuine  corn  shuckings  in  those  days,  and  corn  songs  that 
were  honest,  and  sung  with  a  will  that  beat  a  camp-meeting  chorus — and 
they  had  Christmas,  too,  for  white  folks  and  black  folks.  Little  red 
shawls  and  bandanas  and  jackknives  and  Jews-harps  and  tobacco 
and  old-fashioned  pipes  were  laid  up  for  the  family  servants,  who 
always  managed  to  slip  up  about  break  of  day  with  a  whisper  of  "  Christ- 
masgif  "  before  the  family  were  fairly  awake. 

Then  how  I  remember  how  we  all  used  to  scream  at  the  quarrels  tha 
darkies  had.  They  were  always  so  fierce — their  eyes  would  snap  fire 
so,  and  then  it  would  all  die  out  in  smoke. 

There  had  been  some  hard  words  between  Julius  and  Moses  on  sev- 
eral occasions,  but  one  day  the  collision  came;  Julius  went  round  to  the 
kitchen  and  spied  Moses  talking  to  his  girl.  An  awful  jealousy  filled 
his  whole  being  and  he  began : 

"Look  heah,  boy;  I'ze  dun  got  my  eyeball  on  you,  an*  de  fust  thing 
you  know  I'll  pound  ye  to  squash! "  [Laughter.] 


*      BILL  A  HP.  447 

"Shoo!  Does  you  know  who  you  is  conversin'  wid?"  demanded 
Moses.  Doan'  you  talk  to  me  dat  way,  black  man." 

"Who's  black  man?" 

"  You  is." 

"  You  was  a  liah,  sail!  " 

"So  was  you!" 

"Look  out,  boy!  A  feller  dun  called  me  liah  one  time,  an'  de 
county  had  to  bury  him." 

"  An'  you  look  out  fur  me,  black  man.  I'ze  mighty  hard  to  wake 
up,  but  when  I  gits  aroused  I  was  pizen  all  de  way  frew."  [Laughter.] 

"  Shoo!  I  jist  want  to  say  to  you  dat  de  las'  fight  I  was  in  it  took 
eight  men  to  hold  me.  Doan'  you  git  me  mad,  boy;  doan'you  do  it." 

"  Bum!    I  dass  put  my  hand  right  on  yo'  shoulder." 

"  An'  I  dass  put  my  hand  on  yours." 

"  Now  what  yo'  gwine  ter  do?" 

"  Now  what  yo'  gwine  ter  do?" 

"Shoo!" 

"Shoo!"     [Laughter.] 

And  after  standing  in  defiance  for  a  moment,  each  backed  slowly 
away,  and  went  about  his  business,  to  renew  the  "defi"  at  the  first 
opportunity,  and  always  with  the  same  result. 

But  it's  all  over  now — and  slaves  and  masters  are  gone,  and  the  new 
South  has  come!  Like  Job  of  old,  these  proud  old  masters  have  all 
been  put  upon  trial.  They  lost  their  noble  sons  in  the  army,  and  their 
property  soon  after.  The  extent  of  their  afflictions  no  one  will  ever 
know,  for  the  heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness,  but  they  have  long 
since  learned  how  to  suffer  and  be  strong. 

I  have  now  in  mind  a  proud  old  family,  living  in  quiet  obscurity — 
the  children  of  one  of  Georgia's  noblest  governors,  a  statesman  of 
national  reputation.  They  are  poor,  but  they  are  not  subdued.  Their 
children  work  in  the  field  and  milk  the  cows  and  chop  the  firewood,  but 
they  have  never  forgotten  or  dishonored  their  grand  old  ancestor,  from 
whom  they  sprung.  I  recall  another  one  who,  forty-five  years  ago, 
represented  us  in  the  National  Congress — who  was  for  many  years  almost 
a  monarch  in  his  rule  over  hundreds  of  employes,  and  whose  draft  was 
honored  for  thousands  of  dollars.  "With  tottering  gait  and  trembling 
fingers  he  now  bargains  for  a  nickel's  worth  of  soda,  but  still  is  grand  and 
noble  in  his  poverty.  Always  cheerful,  he  welcomes  those  who  visit  him 
with  the  same  kindness  and  dignity  which  characterized  him  in  his  better 
days. 


448  AUMS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

I  believe  the  day  of  prosperity  is  coming  back,  and  the  children  of 
the  present  generation  will  yet  reap  an  inestimable  blessing  from  the 
great  calamity. 

"  Hard  indeed  was  the  contest  for  freedom  and  the  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence," but  harder  still  has  been  the  struggle  of  these  old  families 
to  live  up  to  the  good  old  style  with  nothing  hardly  to  live  upon.  Society 
is  exacting,  and  then  there  were  the  long-indulged  habits  of  elegance  and 
ease  which  are  hard  to  be  broken.  The  young  can  soon  learn  to  serve 
themselves,  but  the  middle-aged  and  old  found  it  no  labor  of  love  to  begin 
life  anew  on  an  humbler  scale. 

What  a  change  it  was  to  the  refined  and  dignified  housewife  when  the 
chambermaid  withdrew  and  set  up  for  herself,  and  the  good  old  cook, 
who  had  grown  fat  and  greasy  with  service,  departed  from  the  old  home- 
stead in  search  of  freedom,  and  the  good  lady,  who  was  well  versed  in 
the  theory  of  cooking,  had  to  take  her  first  lesson  in  its  practice.  The 
times  have  wonderfully  changed  since  then — some  things  for  better, 
some  for  worse. 

The  grand  old  aristocracy  is  passing  away.  Some  of  them  escaped 
the  general  wreck  that  followed  the  war,  and  have  illustrated  by  their 
energy  and  liberality  the  doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest — but 
their  name  is  not  legion. 

A  new  and  hardier  stock  has  come  to  the  front — that  class,  which, 
prior  to  the  war,  was  under  a  cloud,  and  are  now  seeing  their  better 
days. 

The  pendulum  has  swung  to  the  other  side.  The  results  of  the  war 
made  a  new  South,  and  made  an  opening  for  them  and  developed  their 
energies.  With  no  high  degree  of  culture,  they  have  nevertheless 
proved  equal  to  the  struggle  up  the  rough  hill  of  life,  and  now  play  an 
important  part  in  running  the  financial  machine.  Their  practical 
energy  has  been  followed  by  thrift  and  a  general  recuperation  of  wasted 
fields  and  fenceless  farms  and  decayed  houses.  They  have  proved  to 
be  our  best  farmers  and  most  prosperous  merchants  and  mechanics. 
They  now  constitute  the  solid  men  of  the  State,  and  have  contributed 
largely  to  the  building  up  of  our  schools  and  churches,  our  factories  and 
railroads,  and  the  development  of  our  mineral  resources.  They  are 
shrewd  and  practical  and  not  afraid  of  work. 

The  two  little  ragged  brothers  who  sold  peanuts  in  Rome  in  1860 
are  now  her  leading  and  most  wealthy  merchants.  Two  young  men  who 
then  clerked  for  a  meager  salary  are  now  among  the  merchant  princes 
of  Atlanta.  These  are  but  types  of  the  modern  self-made  Southerner — 
a  class  who  form  the  most  striking  contrast  to  the  stately  dignity  and 


BILL  ARP.  449 

aristocratic  repose  of  the  grand  old  patriarchs  and  statesmen.,  whose 
beautiful  homes  and  long  lines  of  negro  houses,  adorned  the  hills  and 
groves  of  the  South  some  thirty  years  ago. 

But  business  is  business  now,  and  we  must  keep  up  with  it  or  get  run 
over  and  be  crushed  and  forgotten.  The  only  apprehension  about  this 
modern  class,  is  the  disposition  of  some  of  them  in  our  cities  to  place  their 
children  as  far  above  a  safe  and  substantial  social  footing  as  they  them- 
selves used  to  be  below  it — a  disposition  to  assume  an  aristocracy  that  will 
not  stand  the  test  of  time,  much  less  of  misfortune.  They  have  seen 
what  a  power  gold  exerts  over  the  human  family,  and  are  too  much 
inclined  to  use  it  for  selfish  purposes.  They  will  spoil  their  children  with 
money  and  luxury,  and  then  in  another  generation  the  pendulum  will 
swing  back  again.  Even  the  religion  of  some  of  them  is  gilded  with  a 
golden  gloss  and  made  a  matter  of  business  calculation.  Their  practi- 
cal views  in  this  regard  remind  me  of  a  venerable  and  learned  French- 
man, who  said  to  a  lady  not  long  ago,  "Madam,  a  man  must  join  ze 
church  in  zis  countree  to  have  ze  privilege  of  good  society  vile  he  lives, 
and  insure  a  Christian  burial  ven  he  die.  I  vas  a  Eoman  Catholic  at 
home,  but  I  tinks  I  vill  join  ze  Episcopal  Church  very  soon  ;  I  like  him 
ze  pest. "  Before  she  met  him  again  he  had  joined  the  Baptist  church. 

"  I  thought  you  liked  the  Episcopal  the  best  ?  "  said  she. 

"  I  does,  madam,  but  ven  I  ask  ze  cashier  how  much  he  charge  me 
by  ze  year,  he  say  he  reckon  about  a  hundred  dollars.  Then  I  ask  the 
Presbyterian  cashier,  and  he  tink  about  fifty  dollars,  and  ze  Methodist 
cashier  say  about  twenty-five — but  ze  Baptist  cashier  look  at  niy  old 
coat,  and  say  ten  dollar  is  enough  for  me,  so  I  make  ze  contract  and 
join  heem." 

A  few  days  after,  the  venerable  doctor  was  found  to  be  in  a  great 
hurry.  He  said  he  was  looking  for  the  cashier  of  his  church.  "What 
for  ?"  he  was  asked.  "  Why,  mine  freend,  zat  cashier  forgot  mine  con- 
tract, and  he  keep  sending  me  his  leetle  notes,  wanting  five  dollars  for 
zis  ting  and  five  dollars  for  zat  ting,  and  so  I  get  ze  life  insurance  tables, 
which  say  I  shust  have  six  years  to  live,  and  zat  makes  sixty  dollar,  and 
for  cash  in  advance  it  comes  down  to  forty-eight  dollars,  and  I  pay  heern 
all  up  in  fool  to-day  and  take  von  clear  receipt,  and  then  zey  buries  me 
when  I  die,  and  I  go  straight  up  to  heaven,  vere  zey  troubles  me  no 
more." 

But  there  is  one  feature  in  the  new  order  of  things  which  has  sur- 
prised and  bewildered  the  most  philosophic  minds,  that  is  the  disposi- 
tion which  the  present  generation  have  to  educate  their  daughters.  In 
the  good  old  times  the  sons  were  the  special  objects  of  the  parents'  care. 


450  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM'AND  PULPIT. 

The  better  classes  gave  to  both  sons  and  daughters  a  first-class  edu- 
cation if  they  could,  but  if  either  had  to  be  neglected  it  was  the 
daughters.  The  female  colleges  were  few,  while  the  male  colleges 
abounded  all  over  the  land,  and  were  thronged  with  the  sons  of  wealthy 
and  aristocratic  Southerners.  Now  the  rule  is  reversed.  The  pendu- 
lum is  swinging.  The  boys  are  sacrificed  and  the  girls  are  sent  to  col- 
lege. 

This  is  all  very  well,  I  reckon,  and  if  it  is  not,  I  don't  see  how  we  are 
going  to  help  it.  The  trouble  is  to  find  out  who  these  college  girls  are 
going  to  marry.  I  don't  suppose  they  will  marry  any  body  until  some- 
body asks  them,  but  it's  natural  and  very  proper  for  man  and  wife  to  be 
pretty  much  alike,  mentally  and  socially.  They  should,  as  it  were,  class 
together,  like  the  cotton  buyer  classes  his  cotton,  or  the  merchant  his 
sugar,  or  the  farmer  his  cattle,  or  the  geologist  his  strata  of  rocks.  I 
don't  allude  to  property  at  all,  for  that  is  about  the  last  consideration 
that  secures  real  happiness  in  wedded  life,  though  I  wouldn't  advise  any 
poor  man  to  marry  a  poor  girl  just  because  she  is  poor,  and  I  hope  none 
of  these  girls  will  ever  refuse  a  rich  man  because  he  is  rich. 

Money  is  a  right  good  thing  in  a  family,  and  no  sensible  girl  will  turn 
up  her  nose  at  it.  Money  is  a  social  apology  for  lack  of  brains  or  educa- 
tion or  graceful  manners,  but  it's  no  apology  for  lack  of  honesty  or 
good  principles.  Money  enables  a  man  to  step  up  higher  in  the  social 
circle  than  he  could  do  without  it.  Hence  we  see  a  rich  man  without 
culture  ranks  pretty  well  with  a  poor  man  with  culture.  Hence  it  is 
that  lawyers  and  doctors  and  teachers  and  preachers  and  editors,  how- 
ever poor,  move  in  the  same  strata  with  bankers  and  merchants,  however 
rich.  The  difference  is  that  money  may  be  lost,  but  education  and 
culture  can  not  be;  and  when  an  uneducated  man  loses  his  money,  he 
loses  caste,  and  must  step  down  and  out. 

The  value  of  a  man's  money  depends,  however,  upon  the  manner  in. 
which  he  obtained  it.  Shoddy  fortunes  don't  amount  to  anything.  They 
may  shine  for  a  while  in  gilded  coaches  and  splendid  halls,  but  they  will 
not  last.  If  the  possessor  does  not  lose  it,  his  children  will  spend  it,  and 
leave  the  world  as  poor  as  their  father  came  into  it.  A  fortune  gained  in  a 
year  rarely  sticks  to  anybody.  Five  years  is  not  secure.  But  one  gained 
by  the  pursuit  of  an  honorable  calling  for  ten,  twenty  or  thirty  years 
brings  with  it  that  high  social  position  which  justly  entitles  a  man  to  be 
called  one  of  the  aristocracy.  It  is  a  great  mistake  for  anybody  to  desire 
a  fortune  to  come  suddenly.  It  would  embarrass  him.  A  big  pile  of 
surplus  money  will  make  a  fool  of  most  any  body  on  short  acquaintance. 
It  takes  a  man  several  years  to  learn  its  best  uses,  and  to  handle  it  with 


BILL  ARP.  451 

becoming  dignity.  If  a  man  never  rode  in  a  phaeton  behind  a  spanking 
team,  it  takes  him  a  good  while  to  get  used  to  that.  He  doesn't  know 
exactly  what  to  do  with  his  hands  or  his  feet,  whether  to  lean  compla- 
cently back  or  cautiously  forward.  If  the  vehicle  crosses  a  sudden  rise, 
he  dosen't  rise  with  it  in  graceful  undulations,  but  humps  himself  awk- 
wardly and  imagines  that  every  body  is  observing  his  conscious  embarrass- 
ment. 

Money-making  sense  is  very  good  sense, but  I  know  a  wealthy  young 
man,  without  culture,  who  was  made  to  believe  that  an  ostrich  egg  which 
he  saw  in  a  museum  was  laid  by  a  giraffe.  I  know  a  nabob  in  Atlanta, 
who  subscribed  for  Appleton's  Cyclopedia,  and  when  they  came  said  that 
he  didn't  know  there  was  but  one  volume,  and  refused  to  pay  for  any 
more.  And  there  is  another  one  there  whom  I  have  known  since 
his  boyhood  when  he  plowed  barefooted  in  a  rocky  field  over 
threadsafts  and  dewberry  vines  at  ten  dollars  a  month.  Pie  now  swims 
in  shoddy  luxury  and  lucky  wealth.  He  took  me  through  his  new  and 
elegant  mansion.  He  talked  gushingly  about  his  liberry  room.  He 
showed  me  a  beautiful  piece  of  furniture  in  the  dining  room,  and  when  I 
said  it  was  unique,  he  said  no,  it  was  a  sideboard.  [Laughter.]  When  I 
inquired  after  the  health  of  his  wife,  he  said  she  had  a  powerful  bad  pain 
in  her  face  and  the  doctor  said  it  was  newralogy,  but  he  believed  she  had 
an  ulster  in  her  nose. 

But  what  troubles  me  is  that  these  girls  are  climbing  up  where  there 
are  no  boys,  or  very  few  at  most.  Mental  culture  begets  mental  superi- 
ority, and  that  raises  one  socially  and  puts  him  or  her  in  a  higher  strata. 
There  are,  I  suppose,  not  less  than  ten  or  fifteen  educated  girls  in  the 
South  to  every  educated  young  man;  but  where  are  the  boys?  They  are. 
in  the  stores  or  the  workshops  or  on  the  farms.  It  did  not  use  to  be  so,, 
but  the  bottom  rail  is  now  on  the  top.  I  don't  know  that  it  can  be  helped 
for  the  war  left  our  people  so  poor  they  can't  send  all  their  children  off 
to  college,  and  so  they  send  the  girls  and  put  the  boys  to  work  to  pay  for 
it.  The  consequence  will  be  that  these  girls  when  they  go  home  can't 
find  any  body  good  enough  for  them.  A  nice,  clever,  country  girl 
graduated  last  year,  and  when  she  came  home  and  asked  her  farmer 
brother  to  name  his  fine  colt  Bucephalus,  after  Alexander's  famous 
horse : 

"  Why,  Mary,"  he  said,  "I  didn't  know  that  Tom  Alexander  had 
any  horse."  [Laughter.] 

Well,  now,  you  see  a  college  girl  is  not  going  to  marry  a  man  like  that 
— that  is,  not  right  away  quick,  on  the  first  asking.  She  will  wait  a  year 
or  so  at  least  for  some  chevalier  Bayard  or  some  first-honor  man  to  come 
30 


452  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

along,  but  by  and  by  she  will  get  tired  waiting,  for  he  won't  come,  and 
then,  in  a  kind  of  desperation,  she  will  mate  with  some  good,  honest, 
hard-working  youth,  and  educate  him  afterwards.  Maybe  this  will  all 
work  out  very  well  in  the  long  run;  for  it's  the  mother  who  makes  the 
man,  and  if  she  is  smart,  so  will  her  children  be.  Of  course  it  will  delay 
and  put  off  these  early  marriages,  which  our  wives  and  mothers  say  are 
all  wrong. 

I  have  been  very  intimate  with  a  lady  for  thirty-five  years,  who  was 
married  at  sweet  sixteen,  but  she  thinks  it  would  be  awful  for  her 
daughters  to  do  likewise  unless  the  offer  was  a  very  splendid  one  in  all 
respects.  I  reckon  that  was  the  reason  why  she  went  off  so  soon. 
[Laughter.] 

I  did  not  marry  my  first  love,  but  Mrs.  Arp  did— [laughter] — bless 
her  heart — and  she  now  declares  I  took  advantage  of  her  innocent  youth 
and  gave  her  no  chance  to  make  a  choice  among  lovers.  That  is  so,  I 
reckon,  for  I  was  in  a  powerful  hurry  to  secure  the  prize  and  pressed  my 
suit  with  all  diligence  for  fear  of  accidents. 

Once  before  I  had  loved  and  lost,  and  I  thought  it  would  have  killed 
me,  but  it  didn't,  for  I  never  sprung  from  the  suicide  stock.  I  had  loved 
a  pretty  little  school-girl  amazingly.  I  would  have  climbed  the  Chim- 
borazo  mountains  and  fought  a  tiger  for  her — a  small  tiger.  And  she 
loved  me,  I  know,  for  the  evening  before  she  left  for  her  distant  home,  I 
told  her  of  my  love  and  my  devotion,  my  adoration  and  aspiration  and 
admiration  and  all  other  "ations,"  and  the  palpitating  lace  on  her  bosom 
told  me  how  fast  her  heart  was  beating,  and  I  gently  took  her  soft  hand  in 
mine  and  drew  her  head  upon  my  manly  shoulder  and  kissed  her.  Deli- 
cious feast — delightful  memory.  It  lasted  me  a  year,  I  know,  and  has  not 
entirely  faded  yet,  for  it  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  tasted  the  nectar  on 
a  school-girl's  lips.  I  never  mention  it  at  home,  and  I  never  quote  this 
passage  when  my  wife  comes  to  my  lecture — no,  never — but  I  think  of  it 
sometimes  on  the  sly — yes,  on  the  sly.  I  never  saw  her  any  more,  for 
she  never  came  back.  In  a  year  or  so  she  married  another  feller  and 
was  happy,  and,  in  course  of  time  I  married  Mrs.  Arp,  and  was  happy, 
too.  So  it  is  all  right  and  no  loss  on  our  side. 

The  old  Southern  girl  was  thus  described  by  the  poet: 

Her  dimpled  cheeks  are  pale; 
She's  a  lily  of  the  vale, 

Not  a  rose. 
In  a  muslin  or  a  lawn 
She  is  fairer  than  the  dawn 

To  her  beaux. 


BILL  ARP.  453 

Tis  a  matter  of  regret 
She's  a  bit  of  a  coquette  of 

Whom  I  sing. 
On  her  cruel  path  she  goes 
With  half  a  dozen  beaux 

On  her  string. 

I  still  love  to  dwell  and  linger  upon  those  heavenly  days.  I  love  to 
look  back  over  my  checkered  life,  and  in  sweet  memories  live  over  the 
past  and  treasure  up  the  good  of  it  and  lament  the  bad  of  it.  Memory 
was  given  to  us  for  some  good  purpose,  and  I  have  no  respect  for  a  man 
who  wants  to  blot  out  every  thing  behind  him  and  keep  rushing  ahead  in 
a  wild  hunt  for  fame  or  fortune. 

"Stop,  poor  sinner,  stop  and  think,"  was  one  of  the  first  hymns  I 
ever  learned,  and  it  fits  me  now  as  well  as  it  did  then. 

I  thought  of  all  this  the  other  day  as  the  cars  swept  along  the  base  of 
Stone  mountain,  and  as  I  looked  upon  its  barren  and  majestic  summit, 
memory  carried  me  back  to  the  days  of  my  gushing  youth  when  there  was 
a  lofty  tower  up  there,  and  Mrs.  Arp,  who  was  then  my  loving  sweet- 
heart, and  I  mounted  its  spiral  stairs  and  sat  together  at  the  top  in  sweet 
communion  with  nature  and  ourselves,  and  as  I  looked  into  her  soft, 
hazel  eyes,  it  seemed  to  me  we  were  a  little  nearer  heaven  than  I  had 
ever  been  before.  It  was  a  glorious  hour,  but  it  could  not  last,  for  there 
was  a  storm  impending  and  the  lightning  flashed  and  the  thunder  pealed, 
and  we  hurried  down  to  a  safe  retreat.  Not  long  afterwards  the  storm 
came,  and  the  winds  blew  and  beat  upon  that  tower  and  it  fell.  Just  so 
it  is  with  our  life  and  our  ambition.  The  mountain's  top  is  grand  and 
charming  for  a  little  while — but  it  is  bleak  and  cold  and  dangerous.  Our 
safest  refuge  and  happiest  retreat  is  down  among  the  humble  flowers  that 
blossom  at  its  base. 

But  what  are  the  college  girls  going  to  do  when  they  graduate  and 
settle  down  in  the  old  homestead?  It  will  be  right  hard  to  descend  from 
the  beautiful  heights  of  astronomy,  the  enchanting  fields  of  chemistry 
and  botany,  the  entertaining  grottos  of  history  and  geology,  and  the 
charming  chambers  of  music  and  social  pleasures  down  to  the  drudgery 
of  washing  dishes,  scouring  brass  kettles,  making  little  breeches,  and 
doing  all  sorts  of  household  and  domestic  work.  It  will  take  a  good, 
strong  resolution  and  common  sense  and  filial  respect  to  do  it,  and  do  it 
gracefully  and  cheerfully,  and  be  always  ready  to  brighten  up  the  family 
hearth  with  her  educated  smile.  Such  girls  are  not  only  happy  in  them- 
selves, but  they  make  others  happy,  and  that  is  the  highest,  purest  and 
noblest  of  all  ambitions. 


454  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Be  content,  then,  with  your  lot,  however  humble,  and  enjoy  what 
you  have  got;  and  if  you  haven't  got  any  thing,  then  enjoy  what  you 
haven't  got,  and  be  contented  still. 

I  know  every  true  man  wishes  from  his  heart  it  was  so  that  the  dear 
creatures  did  not  have  to  work,  only  when  they  felt  like  it.  I  never  see 
ladies  of  culture  and  refinement  doing  the  household  drudgery  but  what 
it  shocks  my  humanity,  and  I  feel  like  Mr.  Bergh  ought  to  establish  a 
society  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  angels.  The  burden  of  bearing 
children  and  raising  them  is  trial  enough,  and  involves  more  of  the 
wear  and  tear  of  the  sinews  of  life  than  all  the  men  have  to  endure. 
Mothers  are  entitled  to  all  the  rest  and  indulgence  that  is  possible,  and 
those  who  have  brought  up  eight  or  ten  children  ought  to  be  retired  on  a 
comfortable  pension  from  the  government. 

There  is  an  old  gander  at  my  house,  who,  for  four  weeks,  stood  guard 
by  his  mate  as  she  set  on  her  nest.  She  plucked  the  down  from  his 
breast  and  covered  her  eggs,  and  when  she  left  them  for  food  he  escorted 
her  to  the  grass  and  escorted  her  back  with  a  pride  and  a  devotion  that 
was  impressive.  My  respect  for  geese  has  been  greatly  enlarged  since  I 
made  their  more  intimate  acquaintance. 

Woman  loves  money,  but  she  loves  it  for  its  uses.  You  never  knew 
one  to  be  a  miser.  She  wants  it  to  spend,  and  there  is  no  goodlier  sight 
than  to  see  her  enter  a  fashionable  dry  goods  store  with  a  well-filled 
purse.  What  a  comfort  it  must  be  to  a  loyal  husband  to  surprise  his 
wife  with  a  liberal  sum  and  say: 

"Now,  my  dear,  just  spend  it  to  suit  yourself."  What  a  harmonizing 
effect  it  has  upon  domestic  affairs!  Woman  is  a  philosopher  by  instinct. 
Solomon  considered  his  long  experience  and  said,  "It  is  good  for  a  man 
to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  all  his  labor,  and  to  live  joyfully  with  his  wife 
whom  he  loveth,  for  this  is  his  portion."  But  this  was  no  new  or  sur- 
prising thing  to  woman.  She  knew  it  before.  She  understands  the 
secret  of  human  happiness,  and  it  is  astonishing  how  readily  she  can 
accommodate  herself  to  surrounding  circumstances.  During  the  war, 
when  the  husbands  were  away,  the  wives  lived  cheaper  and  managed 
better  than  ever  before.  They  patched  and  pieced  and  turned  old 
garments  wrong  side  out;  they  made  coffee  out  of  potatoes  and  rye  and 
ground  peas,  and  stewed  salt  out  of  smoke-house  dirt.  Mothers  who 
used  to  call  in  the  family  doctor  if  a  child  had  a  sore  toe,  or  the  green- 
apple  colic,  soon  learned  to  do  their  own  practice,  for  the  doctors  all 
went  off  to  the  army. 

Many  men  get  discouraged  if  they  can't  do  some  big  thing,  or  the 
crop  fails,  and  they  mope  around  and  do  nothing,  but  a  woman  never 


BILL  ARP.  455 

gives  up.  The  more  oppressed,  the  more  she  is  aroused,  and  many  a 
good,  easy,  good-for-nothing  sort  of  a  husband  is  kept  up  and  sustained 
by  his  diligent  and  managing  wife.  Woman  loves  dress  and  jewelry, 
for  it  is  her  nature  to  be  fond  of  the  beautiful,  and  why  shouldn't  she? 

Our  Heavenly  Father  dresses  the  birds  with  plumage  and  the  fields  with 
flowers  and  the  heavens  with  stars.  We  all  love  to  see  the  ladies  arrayed  in 
garments  as  rich  and  as  lovely  as  they  can  afford.  It  was  this  that  made 
Ahasuerus  hold  out  the  golden  sceptre  to  his  queen,  and  saved  a  nation 
from  destruction.  Isaac  understood  this  when  he  sent  Eebecca  the  ear- 
rings and  bracelets.  Moses  says  the  ear-rings  weighed  half  a  shekel  apiece, 
which,  according  to  the  Hebrew  tables,  made  the  pair  cost  exactly  sixty- 
two  and  a  half  cents.  Couldn't  catch  Rebecca  now  with  such  jewelry  as 
that.  But  they  had  a  curious  way  of  courting  in  those  primitive  days, 
for  whenever  a  bashful  lover  ventured  to  kiss  his  girl,  the  Scriptures  tell 
us  he  lifted  up  his  voice  and  wept.  They  had  fool  boys  then. 
[Laughter.] 

But  after  all,  there  need  be  no  serious  or  gloomy  apprehension  con- 
cerning the  future  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  South.  If  the  boys 
can  not  go  to  college  they  will  gather  culture  by  absorption  and  associa- 
tion, and  acquire  property  by  diligence  and  industry.  Our  young  men 
have  learned  that  it  is  best  to  remain  in  the  land  of  their  birth,  and  few 
emigrate  to  another  clime;  and,  indeed,  the  attachments  of  the  Southern 
people  to  their  neighbors  and  kindred  and  country  are  stronger  than 
those  of  our  Northern  brethren.  Our  society  is  not  made  up  of  a 
mixture  of  all  races.  We  have  a  common  ancestry,  and  have  assimilated 
in  thought  and  habits  and  customs  and  languages  and  principles. 
Added  to  this,  we  have  the  influence  of  a  genial  climate,  mild  winters, 
fertility  of  soil,  lovely  sunsets,  variegated  scenery,  with  fruits  and  flowers 
abounding  everywhere  to  sweeten  and  make  glad  the  rosy  days  of  our 
childhood.  We  have  more  latitude  and  longitude.  Our  homes  are 
more  spacious,  and  our  manhood  is  comforted  with  the  memories  of  our 
youth,  when  we  roamed  over  the  fields  and  forests,  and  hunted  the 
deer  and  turkey  by  day  and  the  'coon  and  'possum  by  night.  It  is  a  hard 
struggle  for  our  young  men  to  emigrate  from  the  homes  of  their  child- 
hood, and  when  they  do,  a  resolution  to  return  at  some  future  day 
lingers  with  them  like  a  sweet  perfume,  and  comforts  them  on  their 
weary  way. 

Not  so  with  the  sons  of  New  England,  or  the  remote,  inclement 
North.  Their  earliest  training  is  to  go — go  West — go  anywhere  for 
business.  They  snap  the  cord  that  binds  them  to  home  and  State  and 
kindred  as  they  would  snap  a  thread.  I  do  not  know  a  people  upon 


456  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

earth  who  have  less  emotional  love  or  veneration  for  home  and  the  local 
memories  of  childhood  than  the  universal,  cosmopolitan  Yankee. 

I  use  the  term  respectfully — for  there  is  no  other  that  designates  the 
descendants  of  the  Puritans.  I  use  it  advisedly,  for  I  have  mingled 
with  them,  and  know  them,  and  have  many  relatives  in  the  old  Bay 
State.  I  had  three  male  cousins  in  one  family,  and  they  were  off  almost 
as  soon  as  they  began  to  wear  breeches  —  one  to  Australia,  one  to  Cali- 
fornia, and  the  other  to  Jeddo,  in  Japan.  They  are  at  home  in  every 
land  but  ours.  They  venture  boldly  among  the  bears  and  panthers  and 
the  wild  Indians  of  the  West,  but  the  Kuklux  and  the  barbarians  of  the 
South  have  been  a  combination  of  terrors  too  terrible  and  appalling. 

We  have  been  calling  them  kindly  ever  since  the  war  We  have 
tendered  the  olive  branch,  and  gave  cordial  welcome  to  those  few  who 
did  venture  among  us.  We  have  sold  them  cotton  and  sugar  and  rice 
and  tobacco,  and  bought  their  patent  medicines  and  fly-traps  and 
picture  papers  and  Yankee  notions  and  gimcracks  and  all  their  tom- 
fooleries, and  go  to  all  their  circuses  and  monkey  shows;  but  still  they 
seem  to  be  afraid  of  us.  I  know  we  whipped  them  pretty  bad  during 
the  late  war — that  is,  at  first  and  all  along  the  middle,  but  at  last  they 
got  the  best  of  it,  and  it  looks  like  they  ought  to  be  satisfied,  and  make 
friends.  We  used  to  think  slavery  was  the  cause  of  all  this  alienation, 
but  slavery  has  been  abolished  twenty-five  years,  and  their  dislike  of  us 
remains  about  the  same. 

Now,  the  Yankee  is  an  Anglo-Saxon,  and  has  many  admirable  traits 
of  character,  some  of  which  we  have  not,  but  need,  and  we  have  been 
living  in  the  hope  that  he  would  come  down  and  live  with  us,  and  teach 
us  economy  and  contrivance,  and  mix  up  and  marry  with  us,  and  give 
us  a  cross  that  would  harmonize  the  sections,  but  he  will  not.  The  last 
census  shows  that  there  are  180,000  more  females  than  males  in  the  New 
England  States. 

Before  the  war  their  educated  young  ladies  used  to  venture  South 
and  teach  school,  and  our  young  men  and  widowers  married  them,  and 
they  made  good  wives  and  good  mothers;  but  they  don't  come  now,  and 
their  young  men  keep  going  off,  and  the  poor  girls  up  there  are  in  a  bad 
fix.  I  have  been  trying  to  persuade  some  of  our  poor  and  proud  young 
men  who  seem  so  hard  to  please  at  home,  to  go  up  there  and  take  the 
pick  of  the  lot,  and  bring  them  down  here,  and  they  say  they  would  if 
the  girls  would  send  them  the  money  to  travel  on.  [Laughter.] 

My  good  father  was  born  in  Massachusetts.  He  came  South  just 
seventy  years  ago,  with  a  cargo  of  brick,  and  never  returned.  Well,  he 
couldn't  return,  for  he  was  shipwrecked,  and  lost  his  cargo,  and  had 


BILL  ARP.  457 

nothing  to  return  on.  My  good  mother  was  born  in  Charleston,  and 
was  hurried  away  from  there  to  Savannah  during  the  yellow  fever  panic 
of  1814.  She  went  to  school  to  my  father,  and  he  married  her.  When 
I  was  old  enough  to  understand  my  peculiar  lineage,  I  wondered  that  I 
could  get  along  with  myself  as  well  as  I  did.  When  a  small  chap,  I  used 
to  bite  myself  and  bump  my  head  against  the  door;  but  my  good  mother 
always  said: 

"You  can't  help  it  Bill;  it  is  South  Carolina  fighting  Massachu- 
setts." A  storm  lost  my  father's  cargo,  and  caused  him  to  settle  down, 
in  Savannah.  It  was  a  fearful  pestilence  that  hurried  my  mother  away 
from  Charleston  when  she  was  an  orphan  child.  So  I  was  the  child  of 
storm  and  pestilence  and  two  belligerent  States — how  could  I  behave? 
But  for  these  remarkable  combinations,  I  reckon  my  father  would  have 
lived  and  died  in  the  old  Bay  State,  and  my  mother  in  Charleston;  but 
what  would  have  become  of  me?  [Laughter.]  But  fifty  years' resi- 
dence made  my  father  a  good  Southern  man,  and  the  Palmetto  Cross 
made  me  a  high-strung  rebel,  and  on  the  eve  of  secession  I  loaded  my 
pen  with  paper  bullets  and  shot  them  right  and  left.  We  soon  found 
out  it  would  take  some  other  sort  to  whip  them  in  fight,  and  I  joined 
the  army.  But  we  have  all  made  friends  again  after  a  fashion,  and  now 
love  one  another's  money  with  a  devotion  that  is  unaffected  and  supreme. 

The  hatred  of  many  of  the  Northern  people  to  those  of  the  South 
arose,  in  part,  from  their  jealousy  of  our  power  and  influence  in  the 
councils  of  the  nation;  for  it  is  a  historic  fact  that  the  statesmen  of  the 
South  controlled  the  government  for  fifty  years.  Nearly  all  the  presi- 
dents and  their  cabinets  were  Southern  men.  Another  cause  of  their 
enmity  was  our  condemnation  of  their  immoral  practices  in  trade  and 
the  pursuit  of  money.  Our  people  set  themselves  up  as  a  kind  of  blooded 
aristocracy,  and  had  negroes  to  wait  upon  them,  and  do  the  menial  service 
these  people  had  to  do  themselves.  Hence  tney  began  a  fanatical  crusade 
against  slavery — notwithstanding  they  had  sold  us  the  slaves  and  the 
sin  with  them  more  than  a  century  ago,  and  warranted  the  title  to  us 
and  our  heirs  forever.  But,  I  repeat,  slavery  has  been  abolished  for 
twenty-five  years,  and  they  seem  to  dislike  us  as  much  as  before.  This 
can  not  be  accounted  for,  unless  it  is  like  a  feller  who  killed  a  dog  for 
biting  him,  and  after  the  dog  was  dead  he  kicked  him  and  mauled  him 
and  cursed  him  until  a  friend  who  stood  by  remonstrated,  and  said: 

"  Don't  you  see  the  brute  is  dead — what  are  you  beating  him  now 
for?" 

"Dog  on  him,"  said  he,  "I  want  to  teach  him  that  there  is  a  little 
hell  and  punishment  after  death."  [Laughter.] 


458  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PUPILT. 

The  Yankee  moralist  reminds  me  of  a  man  who  became  convinced  of 
trie  evils  of  the  liquor  traffic.  He  sold  out  his  stock  of  whiskey  and 
joined  the  Good  Templars,  and  then  lectured  the  man  he  sold  to  for 
pursuing  such  an  ungodly  calling.  [Laughter.] 

Now,  while  we  all  admit  that-  the  abolition  of  Southern  slavery  will 
eventually  prove  a  blessing,  yet  we  have  no  apologies  to  make  for  the 
institution  as  it  was,  and  we  have  no  sympathy  with  the  manner  of  the 
change.  Judge  Tourgee  says,  in  his  "  Fool's  Errand,"  that  nobody  but 
fools  would  have  forced  freedom  in  such  a  summary  way.  "We  believe 
that  slavery  was  established  in  the  providence  of  God;  it  was  the  same 
providence  that  caused  its  overthrow,  and  I  don't  question  Providence. 

In  an  address  on  education  in  the  South,  delivered  some  months 
ago  before  the  American  Institute  of  Instruction,  by  Rev.  A.  D.  Mayo, 
we  find  the  first  acknowledgment  we  have  ever  seen  from  a  Northern 
source  of  the  real  part  that  Southern  slavery  has  played  in  the  history 
of  the  negro  race.  The  whole  address  breathes  a  spirit  and  purpose  at 
once  noble,  refined  and  appreciative.  Dr.  Mayo  says:  "The  colored 
people  must  be  told  that  no  six  millions  of  people  in  any  land  was  ever, 
on  the  whole,  so  marvelously  led  by  Providence  as  they  for  the  past  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  Indeed,  all  the  good  there  ever  was  in  slavery 
was  for  them.  It  was  that  severe  school  of  regular  work  and  drill  in 
some  of  the  primal  virtues  which  every  race  must  get  at  the  start;  and 
American  slavery  was  a  charity  school  contrasted  with  the  awful  deso- 
lation of  the  centuries  of  war  and  tyranny  by  which  every  European 
people  has  come  up  to  its  present  station  of  civilized  life." 

The  Southern  negro  is  away  in  advance  of  the  Congo  negro.  He  is 
Christianized.  The  Congoite  is  still  a  savage,  eating  snakes  and  snails. 
The  negro  is  religious,  but  he  warps  his  religion  to  fit  his  every-day  life. 
Eli  Perkins  says  he  asked  a  good,  old  colored  clergyman  in  Tennessee: 

"  Uncle  Josh,  don't  you  believe  in  the  efficacy  of  special  prayer?" 

"  "What  you  mean  by  special  prayer?  "  asked  Uncle  Josh,  picking  a 
turkey  feather  off  his  trousers. 

"  By  special  prayer  I  mean  where  you  pray  for  a  special  thing." 

"Wai,  now,  Mister  Perkins,  dat  depends.  It  depends  a  good  deal  on 
what  yo'pray  for." 

«'  How  is  that,  Uncle  Josh?" 

((  Wai,  I  allays  notice  dat  when  I  pray  de  Lord  to  send  one  of  Massa 
Shelby's  turkeys  to  de  ole  man  it  don't  come,  but  when  I  prays  dat  He'll 
send  de  ole  man  after  de  turkey,  my  prayer  is  allays  answered.  [Laugh- 
ter.] 


BILL  AEP.  459 

The  negro  is  a  distinct  nation — one  of  the  original  creations  of  the 
Almighty,  and  has  original  traits  and  habits  and  instincts  as  all  the 
unmixed  nations  have.  He  loves  the  present  good  and  has  no  morbid 
desire  for  the  accumulation  of  riches;  unlike  the  white  man,  he  rarely 
cheats  or  swindles  anybody,  and  unlike  the  white  man,  never  steals  on  a 
large  scale.  He  would  not  rob  a  bank.  If  he  finds  $1,000  in  the  road 
he  takes  it  to  his  employer,  but  he  will  take  a  chicken  from  the  roost  or 
a  breast  pin  from  the  bureau,  or  a  dollar  from  the  drawer  with  perfect 
satisfaction  and  a  peaceful  conscience.  Small  pilfering  is  the  extent  of 
his  capacity  and  the  extent  of  his  inclination.  "When  my  stable  boy 
finds  a  hen's  nest,  I  feel  like  thanking  him  for  bringing  me  half  the  eggs. 
When  our  cook  hides  away  a  little  flour,  Mrs.  Arp  shuts  her  eyes  and 
says  nothing,  for  it  hurts  their  feelings  so  bad  to  be  accused  when  they 
are  guilty. 

But  for  hard  work,  contented  work,  humble  work,  who  could  take 
their  places  on  the  drays  and  the  steamboats  and  the  railroads,  who 
would  do  the  white  man's  bidding  with  so  little  murmuring  and  so 
much  cheerfulness.  The  negro  is  still  an  important  factor  in  our 
Southern  homes  and  Southern  industries,  and  with  all  his  faults,  we 
like  him  and  are  willing  for  him  to  remain.  We  must  study  him  and 
apologize  for  him  like  we  do  other  nations.  The  Indian  outranks  him 
in  his  emotional  nature,  for  the  Indian  has  gratitude  and  has  revenge 
largely  developed.  He  will  traverse  swamps  and  a  wilderness  to  reward 
a  friend,  and  he  will  do  the  same  thing  to  avenge  an  enemy,  but  the 
negro  will  do  neither.  He  never  pines  away  in  the  chain  gang.  When 
his  term  is  out,  he  is  the  same  unconcerned  creature,  and  frequently 
repeats  his  crime  and  goes  back  to  convict  work.  When  he  is  under  the 
gallows  he  uniformly  denies  the  justice  of  his  sentence  and  says  he  is 
going  to  Jesus,  and  so  dies  in  the  faith  of  an  ignorant  superstition.  A 
special  Providence  has  thrown  him  among  us,  and  our  faith  is  that  the 
same  Providence  will  take  care  of  him  and  of  us.  He  is  grafted  on  to 
the  Southern  tree.  Other  nations  have  been  similarly  transplanted  and 
still  live  and  prosper.  The  Jews,  like  the  mistletoe  that  fastens  and 
feeds  upon  every  tree,  still  find  a  home  in  every  land  and  yet  have  pre- 
served their  habits  and  religion  and  nationality,  and  so  we  think  that 
the  white  and  the  black  races  can  live  together  in  peace. 

In  recurring  to  the  grand  old  days  that  are  past,  I  sometimes  feel  sad 
because  our  children  know  so  little  of  what  the  South  was  in  the  good 
timeb,  say  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  years  ago  —  nothing  of  the  old 
patriarchal  system — nothing  of  slavery  as  it  was — nothing  of  those 


460  KIXGS  OF  TEE  PLATFOEM  AND  PULPIT. 

magnificent  leaders  and  exemplars  of  the  people,  such  as  Clay  and  Cal- 
houn  and  Berrien  and  Crawford  and  the  Lamars  and  Styles. 

They  and  their  illustrious  compeers  molded  manners  and  sentiment 
and  chivalry  and  patriotism,  and  stood  up  above  the  masses  like  the 
higher  heads  overtop  the  rest  in  a  field  of  golden  grain.  But  the  diffu- 
sion of  knowledge  is  now  bringing  the  masses  up  to  the  standard  of  edu- 
cation which  these  noblemen  created.  The  field  of  grain  is  coming  up 
to  a  uniform  and  unbroken  level.  The  chances  of  men  for  fortune  and 
for  fame  are  more  generally  diffused,  and  more  nearly  equal  than  they 
have  ever  been,  and  the  rise  of  a  man  from  the  humblest  walks  of  life  is 
no  longer  considered  a  miracle. 

The  Joe  Brown  type  is  in  the  ascendant — the  pendulum  is  always 
swinging.  Generations  play  at  see-saw  —  up  to-day,  down  to-morrow — 
but  still  the  pivot  on  which  they  play  is  rising  higher  and  higher  at  the 
South.  Then  let  us  not  complain  about  that  which  we  can  not  help,  for 
whether  we  are  up  or  down,  we  have  a  goodly  heritage.  Let  us  all  stand 
fast  —  stand  fast  by  our  land  and  our  people,  and  by  the  blessed  mem- 
ories of  the  past. 

Arise  and  sing!     [Laughter.] 


BILL  ARP  TO  ARTEMUS  WARD. 

ROME,  GA.,  September  1,  1865. 

Mr.  Artemus  Ward,  Showman.  SIR:  The  reason  I  write  to  you  in 
perticler,  is  because  you  are  about  the  only  man  I  know  in  all  "  God's 
country  "  so-called.  For  some  several  weeks  I  have  been  wantin  to  say 
sumthin.  For  some  several  years  we  rebs,  so-called,  but  now  late  of  said 
country  deceased,  have  been  tryin  mighty  hard  to  do  somethin.  We 
didn't  quite  do  it,  and  now'  it's  very  painful,  I  assure  you,  to  dry  up  all 
of  a  sudden,and  make  out  like  we  wasn't  there. 

My  friend,  I  want  to  say  somethin.  I  suppose  there  is  no  law  agin 
thinkin,  but  thinkin  don't  help  me.  It  don't  let  down  my  thermometer. 
I  must  explode  myself  generally  so  as  to  feel  better.  You  see,  I'm  tryin 
to  harmonize,  I'm  tryin  to  soften  down  my  feelins.  I'm  endeavoring 
to  subjugate  myself  to  the  level  of  surroundin  circumstances,  so-called. 
But  I  can't  do  it  until  I  am  allowed  to  say  somethin.  I  want  to  quar- 
rel with  somebody  and  then  make  friends.  I  ain't  no  giant  killer.  I 
ain't  no  Norwegian  bar.  I  ain't  no  boar-constrikter,  but  I'll  be  horns- 
waggled  if  the  talkin  and  writin  and  slanderin  has  got  to  be  all  done  on 
one  side  any  longer.  Sum  of  your  folks  have  got  to  dry  up  or  turn  our 
loose.  It's  a  blamed  outrage,  so-called.  Ain't  you  editors  got 


BILL  ARP.  461 

nothin  else  to  do  but  peck  at  us,  and  squib  at  us,  and  crow  over  us?  Is 
every  man  what  can  write  a  paragraph  to  consider  us  bars  in  a  cage,  and 
be  always  a-jobbin  at  us  to  hear  us  growl?  Now  you  see,  my  friend, 
that's  what's  disharmonious,  and  do  you  jest  tell  'em,  one  and  all  e  pluri- 
bus  unum,  so-called,  that  if  they  don't  stop  it  at  once  or  turn  us  loose 
to  say  what  we  please,  why  we  rebs,  so-called,  have  unanimously  and 
jointly  and  severally  resolved  to — to — to — think  very  hard  of  it — if  not 
harder. 

That's  the  way  to  talk  it.  I  ain't  agoin  to  commit  myself.  I  know 
when  to  put  on  the  breaks.  I  ain't  goin  to  say  all  I  think,  like  Mr. 
Etheridge,  or  Mr.  Adderrig,  so-called.  Nary  time.  No,  sir.  But  I'll 
jest  tell  you,  Artemus,  and  you  may  tell  it  to  your  show.  If  we  ain't 
allowed  to  express  our  sentiments,  we  can  take  it  out  in  hatin;  and  hatin 
runs  heavy  in  my  family,  sure.  I  hated  a  man  once  so  bad  that  all  the 
hair  cum  off  my  head,  and  the  man  drowned  himself  in  a  hog-waller 
that  night.  I  could  do  it  agin,  but  you  see,  I'm  tryin  to  harmonize,  to 
acquiess,  to  becum  calm  and  screen. 

Now,  I  suppose  that,  poetically  speakin, 

In  Dixie's  fall, 
We  sinned  all. 

But  talkin  the  way  I  see  it,  a  big  feller  and  a  little  feller,  so-called, 
got  into  a  fite,  and  they  fout  and  fout  a  long  time,  and  everybody  all 
round  kept  hollerin,  "hands  off,"  but  helpin  the  big  feller,  until  finally 
the  little  feller  caved  in  and  hollered  enuf.  He  made  a  bully  fite,  I  tell 
you,  Selah.  Well,  what  did  the  big  feller  lo?  Take  him  by  the  hand 
and  help  him  up,  and  brush  the  dirt  off  his  clothes?  Nary  time!  No  sur! 
But  he  kicked  him  arter  he  was  down,  and  throwed  mud  on  him,  and 
drugged  him  about  and  rubbed  sand  in  his  eyes,  and  now  he's  gwine 
about  huntin  up  his  poor  little  property.  Wants  to  confiscate  it,  so- 
called.  Blame  my  jacket  if  it  ain't  enuf  to  make  your  head  swim. 

But  I'm  a  good  Union  man,  so-called.  I  ain't  agwine  to  fight  no 
more.  I  shan't  vote  for  the  next  war.  I  ain't  no  gurrilla.  I've 
done  tuk  the  oath,  and  I'm  gwine  to  keep  it,  but  as  for  my"  bein  subju- 
gated and  humilyated  and  amalgamated  and  enervated  as  Mr.  Chase 
says,  it  ain't  so — nary  time.  I  ain't  ashamed  of  nuthin  neither — ain't 
repentin — ain't  axin  for  no  one-horse,  short-winded  pardon.  Nobody 
needn't  be  playin  priest  around  me.  I  ain't  got  no  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars. Wish  I  had;  I'd  give  it  to  these  poor  widders  and  orfins.  I'd 
fatten  my  own  numerous  and  interestin  offspring  in  about  two  minutes 
and  a  half.  They  shouldn't  eat  roots  and  drink  branch-water  no  longer. 
Poor  unfortunate  things!  to  cum  into  this  subloonary  world  at  sich  a 


462  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

time.  There's  four  or  five  of  them  that  never  saw  a  sirkis  or  a  monky- 
show — never  had  a  pocket-knife  nor  a  piece  of  chees  nor  a  reesin. 
There's  Bull  Run  Arp  and  Harper's  Ferry  Arp  and  Chicahominy  Arp 
that  never  saw  the  pikters  in  a  spellin  book.  I  tell  you,  my  friend,  we 
are  the  poorest  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth — but  we  are  poor  and 
proud.  We  made  a  bully  fite,  Selah,  and  the  whole  American  nation 
ought  to  feel  proud  of  it.  It  shows  what  Americans  can  do  when  they 
think  they  are  imposed  upon — "so-called."  Didn't  our  four  fathers  fight, 
bleed  and  die  about  a  little  tax  on  tea,  when  not  one  in  a  thousand  drunk 
it?  Bekausthey  succeeded,  wasn't  it  glory?  But  if  they  hadn't,  I  suppose 
it  would  have  been  treason,  and  they  would  have  been  bowin  and  scrapin 
round  King  George  for  pardon.  So  it  goes,  Artemus,  and  to  my  mind, 
if  the  whole  thing  was  stewed  down  it  would  make  about  half  pint  of 
humbug.  We  had  good  men,  great  men,  Christian  men  who  thought  we 
was  right,  and  many  of  'em  have  gone  to  the  undiscovered  country,  and 
have  got  a  pardon  as  is  a  pardon.  When  I  die  I  am  mighty  willing  to 
risk  myself  under  the  shadow  of  their  wings,  whether  the  climate  be  hot 
or  cold.  So  mote  it  be.  Selah! 

Well,  maybe  I've  said  enough.  But  I  don't  feel  easy  yet.  I'm  a  good 
Union  man,  certain  and  sure.  I've  had  my  breeches  died  blue,  and  I've 
bot  a  blue  bucket,  and  I  very  often  feel  blue,  and  about  twice  in  a  while 
I  go  to  the  doggery  and  git  blue,  and  then  I  look  up  at  the  blue  serulean 
heavens  and  sing  the  melancholy  chorus  of  the  Bluetailed  Fly.  I'm 
doin  my  durndest  to  harmonize,  and  think  I  could  succeed  if  it  wasn't 
for  sum  things.  When  I  see  a  blackguard  goin  around  the  streets  with  a 
gun  on  his  shoulder,  why  right  then,  for  a  few  minutes,  I  hate  the  whole 
Yankee  nation.  Jerusalem!  how  my  blood  biles!  The  institution  what 
was  handed  down  to  us  by  the  heavenly  kingdom  of  Massachusetts,  now 
put  over  us  with  powder  and  ball!  Harmonize  the  devil!  Ain't  we 
human  beings?  Ain't  we  got  eyes  and  ears  and  feelin  and  thinkin? 
Why,  the  whole  of  Africa  has  cum  to  town,  women  and  children  and 
babies  and  baboons  and  all.  A  man  can  tell  how  fur  it  is  to  the  city  by 
the  sme'l  better  than  the  milepost.  They  won't  work  for  us,  and  they 
won't  work  for  themselves,  and  they'll  perish  to  death  this  winter  as  sure 
as  the  devil  is  a  hog,  so-called.  They  are  now  basking  in  the  summer's 
sun,  livin  on  rosting  ears  and  freedom,  with  nary  idee  that  the  winter 
will  come  again,  or  that  castor  oil  and  salts  cost  money.  Sum  of  'em 
over  a  hundred  years  old  are  whining  around  about  going  to  kawlidge. 
The  truth  is,  my  friend,  sombody's  badly  fooled  about  this  bizness. 
Sombody  has  drawd  the  elefant  in  the  lottery,  and  don't  know  what  to 
do  with  him.  He's  just  throwing  his  snout  loose,  and  by  and  by  he'll 


BILL  ARP.  463 

hurt  sombody.  These  niggers  will  have  to  go  back  to  the  plantations 
and  work.  I  ain't  agoin  to  support  nary  one  of  'em,  and  when  you  heer 
any  one  say  so  you  tell  him  "it's  a  lie,"  so-called.  I,  golly!  I  ain't  got 
nuthin  to  support  myself  on.  We  fought  ourselves  out  of  every  thing 
excepin  children  and  land,  and  1  suppose  the  land  is  to  be  turned  over 
to  the  niggers  for  graveyards. 

Well,  my  friend,  I  don't  want  much.  I  ain't  ambitious,  as  I  used  to 
was.  You  all  have  got  your  shows  and  monkeys  and  sircusses  and  brass 
bands  and  organs,  and  can  play  on  the  patrolyum  and  the  harp  of  a  thou- 
sand strings,  and  so  on,  but  I've  only  got  one  favor  to  ax  you.  I  want 
enough  powder  to  kill  a  big  yaller  stump-tail  dog  that  prowls  around 
my  premises  at  night.  Pon  my  honor,  I  won't  shoot  at  anything  blue 
or  black  or  mulatter.  Will  you  send  it?  Are  you  and  your  folks  so 
skeered  of  me  and  my  folks  that  you  won't  let  us  have  any  ammunition? 
Are  the  squirrels  and  crows  and  black  racoons  to  eat  up  our  poor  little 
corn-patches?  Are  the  wild  turkeys  to  gobble  all  around  us  with  impu- 
nity? If  a  mad  dog  takes  the  hiderphoby,  is  the  whole  community  to 
run  itself  to  death  to  get  out  of  the  way?  I  golly!  it  looks  like  your  peo- 
ple had  all  took  the  rebelfoby  for  good,  and  was  never  gwine  to  get  over 
it.  See  here,  my  friend,  you  must  send  me  a  little  powder  and  a  ticket 
to  your  show,  and  me  and  you  will  harmonize  sertin. 

With  these  few  remarks  I  think  I  feel  better,  and  I  hope  I  hain't 
made  nobody  fitin  mad,  for  I'm  not  on  that  line  at  this  time. 

I  am  truly  your  friend,  all  present  or  accounted  for. 

P.  S. — Old  man  Harris  wanted  to  buy  my  fiddle  the  other  day  with 
Confederit  money.  He  sed  it  would  be  good  agin.  He  says  that  Jim 
Funderbuk  told  him  that  Warren's  Jack  seen  a  man  who  had  jest  come 
from  Virginny,  and  he  said  a  man  had  told  his  cousin  Mandy  that  Lee 
had  whipped  'em  agin.  Old  Harris  says  that  a  feller  by  the  name  of 
Mack  C.  Million  is  coming  over  with  a  million  of  men.  But  neverthe- 
less, notwithstandin,  somehow  or  somehow  else,  I'm  dubus  about  the 
money.  If  you  was  me,  Artemus,  would  you  make  the  fiddle  trade? 

Yours  truly, 

BILL  ARP. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  tells  this  story  about  "Wendell  Phillips. 
It  occurred  when  slavery  was  the  bone  of  contention  between  the 
North  and  the  South  and  every  body  took  one  side  or  the  other. 

"One  day,"  said  Mr.  Holmes,  "I  was  riding  in  the  cars  near 
Philadelphia,  when  several  Southern  clergymen  got  into  the  car. 
When  one  of  them  heard  that  Wendell  Phillips  the  great  anti-slavery 
agitator  was  on  board,  he  asked  the  conductor  to  point  him  out. 
The  conductor  did  so,  and  the  Southern  clergyman  came  up  to  the 
orator,  and  bowing,  said  : 

"  '  I  beg  pardon,  but  you  are  Mr.  Phillips — Mr.  Wendell  Phillips, 
of  Boston  ? ' 

"'Yes,  sir.' 

" '  I  should  like  to  speak  to  you  about  something,  and  I  trust,  sir, 
you  will  not  be  offended.'  said  the  Southern  clergyman,  politely. 

" '  There  is  no  fear  of  it,'  was  the  sturdy  answer,  and  then  the 
minister  began  to  ask  Mr.  Phillips,  earnestly,  why  he  persisted  in 
stirring  up  such  an  unfriendly  agitation  in  the  North,  about  the  evil 
of  slavery,  when  it  existed  in  the  South. 

"  *  Why/  said  the  clergyman,  '  do  you  not  go  South  and  kick  up 
this  fuss  and  leave  the  North  in  peace?' 

"Mr.  Phillips  was  not  the  least  ruffled,  and  answered,  smilingly: 

" '  You,  sir,  I  presume,  are  a  minister  of  the  gospel  ? ' 

" '  I  am  sir,'  said  the  clergyman. 

" ( And  your  calling  is  to  save  souls  from  hell  ? ' 

" « Exactly,  sir.' 

" '  Then  why  do  you  stay  here  in  Pennsylvania,  agitating  the 
question  of  salvation?  why  don't  you  go  right  down  to  hell,  where 
the  sinners  are  and  save  'em  ?' ' 

One  day  I  met  Mr.  Phillips  on  the  streets  of  Boston.  He  was 
going  along  faster  than  usual,  and  said  he  was  on  his  way  to  Faneuil 

464 


JT.  1QHUKELLOW.          "Wi  &  BSSiKT.  BOEACH  CREELEr. 

CHAS/  A.  HiXA.  BATED  B<  mt.T..  T.  H.  BAZAED. 

V.  V.  EASES.  JAS.  D.  BENNETT. 

'Tgg-  Si  Si  S1UW1I.  CIA 


G.  \v.  CI'RTIS. 
JOS.  B.  HAVOET. 

JOHN  5HESHAN, 

ATIMTRAT, 


HOSCOB  COSEUnGv 
WHITEL4W  SEID< 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  465 

Hall,  where  there  would  probably  be  a  very  exciting  meeting.  Presi- 
dent Grant  had  called  out  the  troops  in  New  Orleans  to  suppress 
riots.  There  was  a  great  Democratic  crowd  in  the  old  historic  hall, 
and  it  appeared  dangerous  for  a  Republican  to  attempt  to  speak.  I 
entered  in  front,  and  just  as  I  cast  my  eyes  on  the  platform,  I  saw 
Mr.  Phillips  begin  to  ascend  it  from  the  speaker's  entrance.  A 
Democratic  orator  was  speaking,  but  no  sooner  had  Mr.  Phillips' 
head  appeared  above  the  platform  than  the  people  began  to  shout, 
"  Phillips,  Phillips ! "  Yery  soon  he  was  addressing  the  audience, 
and  endeavored  to  conciliate  and  pacify  his  hearers. 

"In  all  cases  where  great  peril  existed  to  citizens,"  he  said,  "it 
was  the  duty  of  the  government  to  protect  them.  No  sooner  had 
he  finished  the  sentence  than  a  number  of  men  began  to  hiss. 

The  great  orator  paused  a  moment,  and  then  an  inspired  wrath 
took  hold  of  him,  his  great  eyes  gleamed,  and  in  a  blast  of  irony 
he  exclaimed : 

"  Truth  thrown  into  the  cauldron  of  hell  would  make  a  noise 
like  that." 

BEECHER'S  ESTIMATE  OF  WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 

The  power  to  discern  right  amid  all  the  wrappings  of  interest  and  all 
the  seductions  of  ambition  was  singularly  his.  To  choose  the  lowly  for 
their  sake:  to  abandon  all  favor,  all  power,  all  comfort,  all  ambition,  all 
greatness — that  was  his  genius  and  glory.  He  confronted  the  spirit  of 
the  nation  and  of  the  age.  I  had  almost  said,  he  set  himself  against 
nature,  as  if  he  had  been  a  decree  of  God  overriding  all  these  other 
insuperable  obstacles.  That  was  his  function.  Mr.  Phillips  was  not 
called  to  be  a  universal  orator,  any  more  than  he  was  a  universal  thinker. 
In  literature  and  in  history  he  was  widely  read;  in  person  most  elegant; 
in  manners  most  accomplished;  gentle  as  a  babe;  sweet  as  a  new-blown 
rose;  in  voice,  clear  and  silvery.  He  was  not  a  ipan  of  tempests;  he 
was  not  an  orchestra  of  a  hundred  instruments;  he  was  not  an  organ, 
mighty  and  complex.  The  nation  slept,  and  God  wanted  a  trumpet, 
sharp,  far-sounding,  narrow  and  intense;  and  that  was  Mr.  Phillips. 
The  long  roll  is  not  particularly  agreeable  in  music  or  in  times  of  peace, 
but  it  is  better  than  flutes  or  harps  when  men  are  in  a  great  battle,  or 
are  on  the  point  of  it.  His  eloquence  was  penetrating  and  alarming. 
He  did  not  flow  as  a  mighty  gulf  stream;  he  did  not  dash  upon  the 
continent  as  the  ocean  does;  he  was  not  a  mighty  rushing  river.  His 


466  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PUPILT. 

eloquence  was  a  flight  of  arrows,  sentence  after  sentence,  polished,  and 
most  of  them  burning.  He  shot  them  one  after  the  other,  and  where 
they  struck  they  slew;  always  elegant,  always  awful.  I  think  scorn  in 
him  was  as  fine  as  I  ever  knew  it  in  any  human  being.  He  had  that 
sublime  sanctuary  in  his  pride  that  made  him  almost  insensitive  to  what 
would  by  other  men  be  considered  obloquy.  It  was  as  if  he  said  every 
day,  in  himself,  "I  am  not  what  they  are  firing  at;  I  am  not  there,  and 
I  am  not  that.  It  is  not  against  me.  I  am  infinitely  superior  to  what 
they  think  me  to  be.  They  do  not  know  me."  It  was  quiet  and  unpre- 
tentious, but  it  was  there.  Conscience  and  pride  were  the  two  con- 
current elements  of  his  nature. 

He  lived  to  see  the  slave  emancipated,  but  not  by  moral  means.  He 
lived  to  see  the  sword  cut  the  fetter.  After  this  had  taken  place  he 
was  too  young  to  retire,  though  too  old  to  gather  laurels  of  literature  or 
to  seek  professional  honors.  The  impulse  of  humanity  was  not  at  all 
abated.  His  soul  still  flowed  on  for  the  great  under  masses  of  mankind, 
though  like  the  Nile  it  split  up  into  diverse  mouths,  and  not  all  of  them 
were  navigable. 

After  a  long  and  stormy  life  his  sun  went  down  in  glory.  All  the 
English-speaking  people  on  the  globe  have  written  among  the  names 
that  shall  never  die,  the  name  of  that  scoffed,  detested,  mob-beaten 
Wendell  Phillips.  Boston,  that  persecuted  and  would  have  slain  him, 
is  now  exceedingly  busy  in  building  his  tomb  and  rearing  his  statue. 
The  men  that  would  not  defile  their  lips  with  his  name  are  to-day 
thanking  God  that  he  lived. 

He  has  taught  a  lesson  that  the  j'oung  will  do  well  to  take  heed  to — 
the  lesson  that  the  most  splendid  gifts  and  opportunities  and  ambitions 
may  be  best  used  for  the  dumb  and  the  lowly.  His  whole  life  is  a 
rebuke  to  the  idea  that  we  are  to  climb  to  greatness  by  climbing  up  on 
the  backs  of  great  men;  that  we  are  to  gain  strength  by  running  with  the 
currents  of  life;  that  we  can  from  without  add  anything  to  the  great 
within  that  constitutes  man.  He  poured  out  the  precious  ointment  of 
his  soul  upon  the  feet  of  that  diffusive  Jesus  who  suffers  here  in  His 
poor  and  despised  ones.  He  has  taught  the  young  ambitions  too — that 
the  way  to  glory  is  the  way,  oftentimes,  of  adhesion  simply  to  principle; 
and  that  popularity  and  unpopularity  are  not  things  to  be  known  or 
considered.  Do  right  and  rejoice.  If  to  do  right  will  bring  you  into 
trouble,  rejoice  that  you  are  counted  worthy  to  suffer  with  God  and  the 
providences  of  God  in  this  world. 

He  belongs  to  the  race  of  giants,  not  simply  because  he  was  In  and 
of  himself  a  great  soul,  but  because  he  bathed  in  the  providence  of 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  467 

God,  and  came  forth  scarcely  less  than  a  god;  because  he  gave  himself 
to  the  work  of  God  upon  earth,  and  inherited  thereby,  or  had  re- 
flected upon  him,  some  of  the  majesty  of  his  master.  When  pigmies 
are  all  dead,  the  noble  countenance  of  Wendell  Phillips  will  still  look 
forth,  radiant  as  a  rising  sun — a  sun  that  will  never  set.  He  has  become 
to  us  a  lesson,  his  death  an  example,  his  whole  history  an  encouragement 
to  manhood — -to  heroic  manhood. 


31 


ARCHDEACON    FARRAR. 


The  Eight  Rev.  F.  W.  Farrar,  D.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,  Archdeacon  of 
Westminster,  is  the  foremost  preacher  of  the  Church  of  England. 
He  occupies  the  position  in  church  circles  so  long  adorned  by  the 
late  Dean  Stanley.  His  scholarship  is  wide  and  deep.  His  "  Life  of 
Christ''  and  "Seekers  after  God,"  have  had  a  wonderful  influence 
amongst  the  disciples  of  liberal  Christian  thought.  Dr.  Farrar 
visited  America  in  1884,  and  preached  in  the  chief  cities  of  the 
Union  and  gave  his  famous  lecture  on  Dante. 

ARCHDEACON  FARRAR'S  ARGUMENT. 

Rev.  Archdeacon  F.  "W.  Farrar,  examines  the  philosophy  and  morality 
of  Seneca,  the  wisest  of  the  pagan  philosophers,  Marcus  Aurelius  the  loft- 
iest and  most  moral  pagan  ruler,  and  Epictetus,  the  most  moral  and  just 
of  pagan  stoics,  and  finds  that  pagan  morality  failed  to  bring  happiness 
to  humanity,  and  that  Christ  is  a  necessity. 

With  all  the  learning  and  morality  of  Socrates  and  Plato,  who  pre- 
ceeded  Seneca,  says  the  Archdeacon,  and  with  Seneca  still  living,  Rome 
was  barbarous  and  beastly,  and  brutal  Caius  Caesar  flourished.  Nero, 
who  was  Seneca's  pupil,  was  as  miserable  and  wicked  as  his  people. 
Seneca  was  contemporary  with  Christ,  and  his  own  pupil,  Nero,  not  only 
slew  the  Christians,  but  finally  slew  Seneca  himseif. 

Archdeacon  Farrar  thus  describes  the  barbarism  of  Rome  :  Caius 
Caesar  ruled  Rome  when  the  highest  pagan  morality  flourished.  The 
wicked  reigns  of  Paul  of  Russia,  and  Christian  VII.  of  Denmark,  were 
angelic  compared  to  those  of  Caius  Cassar  and  Nero.  The  madness  of 
Caligula,  another  name  for  Caius,  showed  itself  sometimes  in  glutton- 
ous extravagance,  as  when  he  ordered  a  supper  which  cost  more  than 
forty-thousand  dollars;  sometimes  in  a  bizarre  and  disgraceful  mode  of 
dress,  as  when  he  appeared  in  public  in  women's  stockings,  embroidered 

468 


ARCHDEACON  FAERAR.  4G9 

with  gold  and  pearls ;  sometimes  in  a  personality  and  insolence  of 
demeanor  towards  every  rank  and  class  in  Home,  which  made  him  ask  a 
senator  to  supper,  and  ply  him  with  drunken  toasts,  on  the  very  evening 
on  which  he  had  condemned  his  son  to  death;  sometimes  in  sheer  raving 
blasphemy,  as  when  he  expressed  his  furious  indignation  against  Jupiter 
for  presuming  to  thunder  while  he  was  supping,  or  looking  at  the  panto- 
mimes ;  but  most  of  all  in  a  ferocity  which  makes  Seneca  apply  to  him 
the  name  of  "  Bellua,"  or  "  wild  monster,"  and  say  that  he  seems  to  have 
Oeen  produced  "for  the  disgrace  and  destruction  of  the  human  race.*' 

It  was  an  age  of  the  most  enormous  wealth,  existing  side  by  side  with 
the  most  abject  poverty.  Around  the  splendid  palaces  wandered  hun- 
dreds of  mendicants,  who  made  of  their  mendicity  a  horrible  trade,  and 
even  went  so  far  as  to  steal  or  mutilate  infants  in  order  to  move  compas- 
sion by  their  hideous  maladies.  This  class  was  increased  by  the  exposure  of 
children,  and  by  that  overgrown  accumulation  of  landed  property  which 
drove  the  poor  from  their  native  fields.  It  was  increased  also  by  the 
ambitious  attempt  of  people  whose  means  were  moderate  to  imitate  the 
•enormous  display  of  the  numerous  millionaires.  The  great  Roman  con- 
quests in  the  East,  the  plunder  of  the  ancient  kingdoms  of  Antiochus, 
of  Attalus,  of  Mithridates,  had  caused  a  turbid  stream  of  wealth  to  flow 
into  the  sober  current  of  Roman  life.  One  reads  with  silent  astonish- 
ment of  the  sums  expended  by  wealthy  Romans  on  their  magnificence  or 
their  pleasures.  And  as  commerce  was  considered  derogatory  to  rank 
and  position,  and  was,  therefore,  pursued  by  men  who  had  no  character  to 
lose,  these  overgrown  fortunes  were  often  acquired  by  wretches  of  the 
meanest  stamp — by  slaves  brought  from  over  the  sea,  who  had  to  con- 
ceal the  holes  bored  in  their  ears  or  even  by  malefactors  who  had  to 
obliterate  by  artificial  means  the  three  letters  which  had  been  branded 
by  the  executioner  on  their  foreheads.  But  many  of  the  richest  men  in 
Rome,  who  had  not  sprung  from  this  convict  origin,  were  fully  as  well 
deserving  of  the  same  disgraceful  stigma.  Their  houses  were  built, 
their  coffers  were  replenished,  from  the  drained  resources  of  exhausted 
provincials.  Every  young  man  of  active  ambition  or  noble  birth,  whose 
resources  had  been  impoverished  by  debauchery  and  extravagance,  had 
but  to  borrow  fresh  sums  in  order  to  give  magnificent  gladiatorial  shows, 
and  then,  if  he  could  once  obtain  an  aedileship.  and  mount  to  the  higher 
offices  of  the  State,  he  would  in  time  become  the  procurator  or  procon- 
sul of  a  province,  which  he  might  pillage  almost  at  his  will.  Enter  the 
house  of  a  Felix  or  a  Verres.  Those  splendid  pillars  of  mottled  green 
marble  were  dug  by  the  forced  labor  of  Phrygians  from  the  quarries  of 
Synnada;  that  embossed  silver,  those  murrhine  vases,  those  jeweled  cups, 


470  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

those  masterpieces  of  antique  sculpture,  have  all  been  torn  from  the 
homes  or  the  temples  of  Sicily  or  Greece.  Countries  were  pillaged  and 
nations  crushed  that  an  Apicius  might  dissolve  pearls  in  the  wine  he 
drank,  or  that  Lollia  Paulina  might  gleam  in  a  second-best  dress  of 
emeralds  and  pearls  which  had  cost  40,000,000  sesterces,  or  more  than 
$160,000. 

Each  of  these  "  gorgeous  criminals  "  lived  in  the  midst  of  an  humble 
crowd  of  flatterers,  parasites,  clients,  dependents  and  slaves.  Among  the 
throng  that  at  early  morning  jostled  each  other  in  the  marble  atrium  were 
to  be  found  a  m<rtley  and  heterogeneous  set  of  men.  Slaves  of  every  age 
and  nation — Germans;  Egyptians;  Gauls;  Goths;  Syrians;  Britons; 
Moors;  pampered  and  consequential  freedmen;  impudent,  confidential 
servants;  greedy  buffoons,  who  lived  by  making  bad  jokes  at  other  peo- 
ple's tables;  Dacian  gladiators,  with  whom  fighting  was  a  trade;  philoso- 
phers, whose  chief  claim  to  reputation  was  the  length  of  their  beards; 
supple  Greetings  of  the  Tartuffe  species,  ready  to  flatter  and  lie  with 
consummate  skill,  and  spreading  their  vile  character  like  a  pollution 
wherever  they  went;  and  among  all  these  a  number  of  poor  but  honest 
clients,  forced  quietly  to  put  up  with  a  thousand  forms  of  contumely 
and  insult,  and  living  in  discontented  idleness  on  the  sportula  or  daily 
largesse  which  was  administered  by  the  grudging  liberality  of  their 
haughty  patrons.  The  stout  old  Roman  burgher  had  well-nigh  disap- 
peared; the  sturdy  independence,  the  manly  self-reliance  of  an  industrial 
population  were  all  but  unknown.  The  insolent  loungers  who  bawled 
in  the  forum  were  often  mere  stepsons  of  Italy,  who  had  been  dragged 
thither  in  chains — the  dregs  of  all  nations,  which  had  flowed  into  Rome 
as  into  a  common  sewer,  bringing  with  them  no  heritage  except  -the 
specialty  of  their  national  vices.  Their  two  wants  were  bread  and  the 
shows  of  the  circus;  so  long  as  the  sportula  of  their  patron,  the  occa- 
sional donative  of  an  emperor,  and  the  ambition  of  political  candidates 
supplied  these  wants,  they  lived  in  contented  abasement,  anxious 
neither  for  liberty  nor  for  power. 

It  was  an  age  at  once  of  atheism  and  superstition.  Strange  to  say, 
the  two  things  usually  go  together.  Just  as  Philippe  Egalite,  Duke 
of  Orleans,  disbelieved  in  God,  and  yet  tried  to  conjecture  his  fate  from 
the  inspection  of  coffee-grounds  at  the  bottom  of  a  cup — just  as  Louis 
XI.  shrank  from  no  perjury  and  no  crime,  and  yet  retained  a  profound 
reverence  for  a  little  leaden  image  which  he  carried  in  his  cap — so  the 
Romans  under  the  empire  sneered  at  all  the  whole  crowd  of  gods  and 
goddesses  whom  their  fathers  had  worshiped,  but  gave  an  implicit  cre- 
dence to  sorcerers,  astrologers,  spirit-rappers,  exorcists  and  every 


ARCHDEACON  FARRAR.  471 

species  of  impostor  and  quack.  The  ceremonies  of  religion  were  per- 
formed with  ritualistic  splendor,  but  all  belief  in  religion  was  dead  and 
gone.  "  That  there  are  such  things  as  ghosts  and  subterranean  realms,  not 
even  boys  believe/'  says  Juvenal,  "except  those  who  are  still  too  young 
to  pay  a  farthing  fora  bath."  Nothing  can  exceed  the  cool  imperti- 
nence with  which  the  poet  Martial  prefers  the  favor  of  Domitian  to 
that  of  the  great  Jupiter  of  the  Capitol.  Seneca,  in  his  lost  book 
"Against  Superstitions/'  openly  sneered  at  the  old  mythological  legends 
of  gods  married  and  gods  unmarried,  and  at  the  gods  Panic  and 
Paleness,  and  at  Cloacina,  the  goddess  of  sewers,  and  at  other 
deities  whose  cruelty  and  license  would  have  been  infamous  even  in 
mankind.  And  yet  the  priests  and  Salii  and  Flamens  and  Augurs 
continued  to  fulfill  their  solemn  functions,  and  the  highest  title  of  the 
Emperor  himself  was  that  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  or  Chief  Priest,  which 
he  claimed  as  the  recognized  head  of  the  national  religion.  "Thecom- 
mon  worship  was  regarded/'  says  Gibbon,  "by  the  people  as  equally 
true,  by  the  philosophers  as  equally  false,  and  by  the  magistrates  as 
equally  useful."  And  this  famous  remark  is  little  more  than  a  transla- 
tion from  Seneca,  who,  after  exposing  the  futility  of  the  popular  beliefs, 
adds:  "And  yet  the  wise  man  will  observe  them  all,  not  as  pleasing  to 
the  gods,  but  as  commanded  by  the  laws.  We  shall  so  adore  all  that 
ignoble  crowd  of  gods  which  long  superstition  has  heaped  together  in  a 
long  period  of  years,  as  to  remember  that  their  worship  has  more  to  do 
with  custom  than  with  reality/'  "  Because  he  was  an  illustrious  sena- 
tor of  the  Eoman  people,"  observes  St.  Augustine,  who  has  preserved 
for  us  this  fragment,  "he  worshiped  what  he  blamed,  he  did  what  he 
refuted,  he  adored  that  with  which  he  found  fault."  Could  any  thing 
be  more  hollow  or  heartless  than  this?  Is  there  any  thing  whichismore 
certain  to  sap  the  very  foundations  of  morality  than  the  public  mainte- 
nance of  a  creed  which  has  long  ceased  to  command  the  assent,  and  even 
the  respect  of  its  recognized  defenders?  Seneca,  indeed,  and  a  few 
enlightened  philosophers,  might  have  taken  refuge  from  the  supersti- 
tions which  they  abandoned  in  a  truer  and  purer  form  of  faith.  "Accord- 
ingly," says  Lactantius,  one  of  the  Christian  Fathers,  "  he  has  said 
many  things  like  ourselves  concerning  God."  He  utters  what  Tertullian 
finely  calls  "the  testimony  of  A  MIND  NATURALLY  CHRISTIAN."  But, 
meanwhile,  what  became  of  the  common  multitude?  They  too,  like 
their  superiors,  learnt  to  disbelieve  or  to  question  the  power  of  the 
ancient  deities;  but,  as  the  mind  absolutely  requires  some  religion  on 
which  to  rest,  they  gave  their  real  devotion  to  all  kinds  of  strange  and 
foreign  deities,  to  Isis  and  Osiris,  and  the  dog  Anubus,  to  Chaldasan 


472  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

magicians,  to  Jewish  exercisers,  to  Greek  quacks,  and  to  the  wretched 
vagabond  priests  of  Cybele,  who  infested  all  the  streets  with  their  Ori- 
ental dances  and  tinkling  tambourines.  The  visitor  to  the  ruins  of 
Pompeii  may  still  see  in  her  temple  the  statue  of  Isis,  through  whose 
open  lips  the  gaping  worshipers  heard  the  murmured  answers  they 
came  to  seek.  No  doubt  they  believed  as  firmly  that  the  image  spoke, 
as  our  forefathers  believed  that  their  miraculous  Madonnas  nodded  and 
winked.  But  time  has  exposed  the  cheat.  By  the  ruined  shrine  the 
worshiper  may  now  see  the  secret  steps  by  which  the  priest  got  to  the 
back  of  the  statue,  and  the  pipe  entering  the  back  of  its  head  through 
which  he  whispered  the  answers  of  the  oracle. 

It  was  an  age  of  boundless  luxury — an  age  in  which  women  reck- 
lessly vied  with  one  another  in  the  race  of  splendor  and  extravagance,  and 
in  which  men  plunged  headlong,  without  a  single  scruple  of  conscience, 
and  with  every  possible  resource  at  their  command,  into  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure.  There  was  no  form  of  luxury,  there  was  no  refinement  of  vice 
invented  by  any  foreign  nation,  which  had  not  been  eagerly  adopted  by 
the  Roman  patricians.  "The  softness  of  Sybaris,  the  manners  of  Rhodes 
and  Antioch,  and  of  perfumed,  drunken,  flower-crowned  Miletus/' 
were  all  to  be  found  at  Rome.  There  was  no  more  of  the  ancient  Roman 
severity  and  dignity  and  self-respect.  The  descendants  of  ./Emilius  and 
Gracchus — even  generals  and  consuls  and  pra3tors — mixed  familiarly 
with  the  lowest  canaille  of  Rome,  in  their  vilest  and  most  squalid  purlieus 
of  shameless  vice.  They  fought  as  amateur  gladiators  in  the  arena. 
They  drove  as  competing  charioteers  on  the  race-course.  They  even 
condescended  to  appear,  as  actors  on  the  stage.  They  devoted  them- 
selves with  such  frantic  eagerness  to  the  excitement  of  gambling,  that 
we  read  of  their  staking  hundreds  of  pounds  on  a  single  throw  of  the 
dice,  when  they  could  not  even  restore  the  pawned  tunics  to  their  shiv- 
ering slaves.  Under  the  cold  marble  statues,  or  amid  the  waxen  like- 
'nesses  of  their  famous  stately  ancestors,  they  turned  night  into  day 
with  long  and  foolish  orgies,  and  exhausted  land  and  sea  with  the 
demands  of  their  glutton}T.  ""Woe  to  that  city,"  says  an  ancient  prov- 
erb, "in  which  a  fish  costs  more  than  an  ox;"  and  this  exactly  describes 
the  state  of  Rome.  A  banquet  would  sometimes  cost  the  price  of  an 
estate;  shell-fish  were  brought  from  remote  and  unknown  shores,  birds 
from  Parthia  and  the  banks  of  the  Phasis;  single  dishes  were  made 
of  the  brains  of  the  peacocks  and  the  tongues  of  nightingales  and  fla- 
mingoes. Apicius,  after  squandering  nearly  a  million  of  money  in  the 


ARCHDEACON  FARRAR.  473 

pleasures  of  the  table,  committed  suicide,  Seneca  tells  us,  because  he 
found  that  he  had  only  $400,000  left.     Covvley  speaks  of 
"  Vitellius'  table,  which  did  hold 
As  many  creatures  as  the  ark  of  old." 

"They  eat,"  said  Seneca,  "and  then  they  vomit;  they  vomit,  and 
then  they  eat."  But  even  in  this  matter  we  can  not  tell  any  thing  like 
the  worst  facts  about 

"  Their  sumptuous  gluttonies  and  gorgeous  feasts 
On  citron  tables  and  Altantic  stone, 
Their  wines  of  Setia,  Cales,  and  Falerne, 
Chios,  and  Crete,  and  how  they  quaff  in  gold, 
Crystal  and  myrrhine  cups,  embossed  with  gems 
And  studs  of  pearl." 

Still  less  can  we  pretend  to  describe  the  unblushing  and  unutterable 
degradation  of  this  period  as  it  is  revealed  to  us  by  the  poets  and  the 
satirists.  "All  things,"  says  Seneca,  "are  full  of  iniquity  and  vice; 
more  crime  is  committed  than  can  be  remedied  by  restraint.  We  strug- 
gle in  a  huge  contest  of  criminality;  daily  the  passion  for  sin  is  greater, 
the  shame  in  committing  it  is  less.  .  .  .  Wickedness  is  no  longer 
committed  in  secret;  it  flaunts  before  our  eyes,  and 

"  The  citron  board,  the  bowl  embossed  with  gems, 

.        ..       .        whate'er  is  known 
Of  rarest  acquisition;  Tyrian  garbs, 
Neptunian  Albion's  high  testaceous  food, 
And  flavored  Chian  wines,  with  incense  fumed, 
To  slake  patrician  thirst:  for  these  their  rights 
In  the  vile  streets  they  prostitute  for  sale, 
Their  ancient  rights,  their  dignities,  their  laws, 
Their  native  glorious  freedom, 

has  been  sent  forth  so  openly  into  public  sight,  and  has  prevailed  so 
completely  in  the  breast  of  all,  that  innocence  is  not  rare,  but  non- 
existent." 

And  it  was  an  age  of  deep  sadness.  That  it  should  have  been  so  is 
an  instructive  and  solemn  lesson.  In  proportion  to  the  luxury  of  the 
age  were  its  misery  and  its  exhaustion.  The  mad  pursuit  of  pleasure 
was  the  death  and  degradation  of  all  true  happiness.  Suicide — suicide 
out  of  pure  ennui  and  discontent  at  a  life  overflowing  with  every  possi- 
ble means  of  indulgence' — was  extraordinarily  prevalent.  The  stoic 
philosophy,  especially  as  we  see  it  represented  in  the  tragedies  attributed 
to  Seneca,  rang  with  the  glorification  of  it.  Men  ran  to  death  because 
their  mode  of  life  had  left  them  no  other  refuge.  They  died  because  it 
seemed  so  tedious  and  so  superfluous  to  be  seeing  and  doing  and  saying 


474  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

the  same  things  over  and  over  again;  and  because  they  had  exhausted 
the  very  possibility  of  the  only  pleasures  of  which  they  had  left  them- 
selves capable.  The  satirical  epigram  of  Destouches, 

"Ci-git  Jean  Rosbif,  ecuyer, 
Qui  se  pendit  pour  se  desennuyer," 

was  literally  and  strictly  true  of  many  Romans  during  this  epoch.  Mar- 
cellinus,  a  young  and  wealthy  noble,  starved  himself,  and  then  had  him- 
self suffocated  in  a  warm  bath,  merely  because  he  was  attacked  with  a 
perfectly  curable  illness.  The  philosophy  which  alone  professed  itself 
able  to  heal  men's  sorrows  applauded  the  supposed  courage  of  a  volun- 
tary death,  and  it  was  of  too  abstract,  too  fantastic,  and  too  purely  the- 
oretical a  character  to  furnish  them  with  any  real  or  lasting  consola- 
tions. No  sentiment  caused  more  surprise  to  the  Eoman  world  than  the 
famous  one  preserved  in  the  fragment  of  Maecenas,  which  may  be  para- 
phrased 

"  Numb  my  hands  with  palsy, 

Rack  my  feet  with  gout, 
Hunch  my  back  and  shoulder, 

Let  my  teeth  fall  out; 
Still,  if  Life  be  granted, 

I  prefer  the  loss; 
Save  my  life  and  give  me 
Anguish  on  the  cross." 

Seneca,  in  his  101st  letter,  calls  this  "a,  most  disgraceful  and  most  con- 
temptible wish;"  but  it  may  be  paralleled  out  of  Euripides,  and  still 
more  closely  out  of  Homer.  "  Talk  not/'  says  the  shade  of  Achilles  to 
Ulysses  in  the  Odyssey 

"  '  Talk  not  of  reigning  in  this  dolorous  gloom, 
Nor  think  vain  lies,'  he  cried,  '  can  ease  my  doom. 
Better  by  far  laboriously  to  bear 
A  weight  of  woes,  and  breathe  the  vital  air, 
Slave  to  the  meanest  hind  that  begs  his  bread, 
Than  reign  the  sceptered  monarch  of  the  dead.' " 

But  this  falsehood  of  extremes  was  one  of  the  sad  outcomes  of  the 
popular  paganism.  Either,  like  the  natural  savage,  they  dreaded  death 
with  an  intensity  of  terror:  or,  when  their  crimes  and  sorrows  had  made 
life  unsupportable,  they  slank  to  it  as  a  refuge,  with  a  cowardice  which 
vaunted  itself  as  courage. 

And  it  was  an  age  of  cruelty.  The  shows  of  gladiators,  the  sangui- 
nary combats  of  wild  beasts,  the  not  unfrequent  spectacle  of  savage 
tortures  and  capital  punishments,  the  occasional  sight  of  innocent  mar- 
tyrs burning  to  death  in  their  shirts  of  pitchy  fire,  must  have  hardened 


ARCHDEACON  FARRAR.  475 

and  imbruted  the  public  sensibility.  The  immense  prevalence  of  slavery 
tended  still  more  inevitably  to  the  general  corruption.  "  Lust,"  as  usual, 
was  "  hard  by  hate."  One  hears  with  perfect  amazement  of  the  number 
of  slaves  in  the  wealthy  houses.  A  thousand  slaves  was  no  extravagant 
number,  and  the  vast  majority  of  them  were  idle,  uneducated  and  cor- 
rupt. Treated  as  little  better  than  animals,  they  lost  much  of  the  dig- 
nity of  men.  Their  masters  possessed  over  them  the  power  of  life  and 
death,  and  it  is  shocking  to  read  of  the  cruelty  with  which  they  were 
often  treated.  An  accidental  murmur,  a  cough,  a  sneeze,  was  punished 
with  rods.  Mute,  motionless,  fasting,  the  slaves  had  to  stand  by  while 
their  masters  supped.  A  brutal  and  stupid  barbarity  often  turned  a 
house  into  the  shambles  of  an  executioner,  sounding  with  scourges, 
chains  and  yells.  One  evening  the  Emperor  Augustus  was  supping  at 
the  house  of  Vedius  Pollio,  when  one  of  the  slaves,  who  was  carrying  a 
-crystal  goblet,  slipped  down  and  broke  it.  Transported  with  rage, 
Vedius  at  once  ordered  the  slave  to  be  seized,  and  plunged  into  the  fish- 
pond as  food  to  the  lampreys.  The  boy  escaped  from  the  hands  of  his 
fellow-slaves,  and  fled  to  Caesar's  feet  to  implore,  not  that  his  life  should 
be  spared  —  a  pardon  which  he  neither  expected  nor  hoped  —  but  that 
he  might  die  by  a  mode  of  death  less  horrible  than  being  devoured  by 
fishes.  Common  as  it  was  to  torment  slaves,  and  to  put  them  to  death, 
Augustus,  to  his  honor  be  it  spoken,  was  horrified  by  the  cruelty  of 
Vedius,  and  commanded  both  that  the  slave  should  be  set  free,  that 
•every  crystal  vase  in  the  house  of  Vedius  should  be  broken  in  his  pres- 
ence, and  that  the  fish-pond  should  be  filled  up.  Even  women  inflicted 
upon  their  female  slaves  punishments  of  the  most  cruel  atrocity,  for 
faults  of  the  most  venial  character.  A  brooch  wrongly  placed,  a  tress 
of  hair  ill-arranged,  and  the  enraged  matron  orders  her  slave  to  be 
lashed  and  crucified.  If  her  milder  husband  interferes,  she  not  only 
justifies  the  cruelty,  but  asks  in  amazement:  "  What!  is  a  slave  so 
much  of  a  human  being?  "  No  wonder  that  there  was  a  proverb,  "  As 
many  slaves,  so  many  foes."  No  wonder  that  many  masters  lived  in 
perpetual  fear,  and  that  "  the  tyrant's  devilish  plea,  necessity,"  might 
be  urged  in  favor  of  that  odious  law  which  enacted  that,  if  a  master 
was  murdered  by  an  unknown  hand,  the  whole  body  of  his  slaves  should 
.suffer  death  —  a  law  which  more  than  once  was  carried  into  effect  under 
the  reigns  of  the  emperors.  Slavery,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of  Sparta  and 
many  other  nations,  always  involves  its  own  retribution.  The  class  of 
free  peasant  proprietors  gradually  disappears.  Long  before  this  time 
Tib.  Gracchus,  in  coming  home  from  Sardinia,  had  observed  that  there 
was  scarcely  a  single  freeman  to  be  seen  in  the  fields.  The  slaves  were 


476  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

infinitely  more  numerous  than  their  owners.  Hence  arose  the  constant 
dread  of  servile  insurrections;  the  constant  hatred  of  a  slave  population 
to  which  any  conspirator  revolutionist  might  successfully  appeal;  and  the 
constant  insecurity  of  life,  which  must  have  struck  terror  into  many 
hearts. 

Such  is  but  a  faint  and  broad  outline  of  some  of  the  features  of  Sen- 
eca's age;  and  we  shall  be  unjust  if  we  do  not  admit  that  much,  at  least, 
of  the  life  he  lived,  and  nearly  all  the  sentiments  he  uttered,  gain  much 
in  grandeur  and  purity  from  the  contrast  they  offer  to  the  common. 

life  of 

"That  people  victor  once,  now  vile  and  base." 


After  Caligula  and  Xero  (A.  D.  121)  came  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  pur- 
est pagan  the  world  has  ever  seen.  He  was  almost  a  Christian.  Aure- 
lius was  emperor  of  Home  and  master, of  the  world.  His  philosophy 
•was  ennobling  and  his  teachings  pure  and  sweet.  But  still,  he  saw  no 
future  immortality  and  happiness.  Christianity  includes  all  of  the  good 
in  Aurelian  stoicism  and  then  adds  a  crown  of  immortality.  All  Aure- 
lius could  say  was,  "  Since  it  is  possible  that  thou  mayest  depart  from 
life  this  *ery  moment,  regulate  every  act  and  thought  accord  ingly." 
.  .  ...  Death  certainly  and  life,  honor  and  dishonor,  pain  and 
pleasure,  all  these  things  happen  equally  to  good  men  and  bad,  being 
things  which  make  us  neither  better  nor  worse,  therefore  they  are 
neither  good  nor  evil." 

"Hippocrates  cured  diseases  and  died;  and  the  Chaldaeans  foretold 
the  future  and  died;  and  Alexander  and  Pompey  and  Caesar  killed 
thousands,  and  then  died;  and  lice  destroyed  Democritus,  and  other 
lice  killed  Socrates;  and  Augustus  and  his  wife  and  daughter  and  all 
his  descendants  and  all  his  ancestors  are  dead;  and  Vespasian  and 
all  his  court,  and  all  who  in  his  day  feasted  and  married  and 
were  sick  and  chaffered  and  fought  and  flattered  and  plotted  and 
grumbled  and  wished  other  people  to  die  and  pined  to  become  kings  or 
consuls  are  dead;  and  all  the  idle  people  who  are  doing  the  same  things 
now  are  doomed  to  die;  and  all  human  things  are  smoke  and  nothing  at 
all;  and  it  is  not  for  us,  but  for  the  gods,  to  settle  whether  we  play  the 
play  out,  or  only  a  part  of  it.  'Tit ere  are  many  grains  of  frankincese 
on  the  same  altar;  one  falls  before,  another  falls  after;  but  it  makes  no 
difference.'  And  the  moral  of  all  these  thoughts  is,  'Death  hangs  over 
thee  while  thou  livest:  while  it  is  in  thy  power  be  good.  'Thou  hast 
embarked,  thou  hast  made  the  voyage,  thou  hast  come  to  shore;  get  out- 


ARCHDEACON  FARRAR.  477 

If,  indeed,  to  another  life  there  is  no  want  of  gods,  not  even  there.  But 
if  to  a  state  without  sensation,  thou  wilt  cease  to  be  held  by  pains  and 
pleasures.' " 

Nor  was  Marcus  at  all  comforted  under  present  annoyances  by  the 
thought  of  posthumous  fame.  "How  ephermal  and  worthless  human 
things  are,"  he  says,  "and  what  was  yesterday  a  little  mucus,  to-morrow 
will  be  a  mummy  or  ashes."  "Many  who  are  now  praising  thee,  will 
very  soon  blame  thee,  and  neither  a  posthumous  name  is  of  any  value 
nor  reputation,  nor  anything  else."  What  has  become  of  all  great  and* 
famous  men,  and  all  they  desired,  and  all  they  loved?  They  are 
"smoke  and  ash  and  a  tale,  or  not  even  a  tale."  After  all  their 
.  rages  and  envyings,  men  are  stretched  out  quiet  and  dead  at  last.  Soon 
thou  wilt  have  forgotten  all,  and  all  will  have  forgotten  thee.  But 
here,  again,  after  such  thoughts,  the  same  moral  is  always  introduced 
again:  "Pass  then  through  the  little  space  of  time  conformably  to 
nature,  and  end  the  journey  in  content.  Just  as  an  olive  falls  off  when 
it  is  ripe,  blessing  nature  who  produced  it  and  thanking  the  tree  on 
which  it  grew." 

The  morality  of  paganism  was,  on  its  own  confession,  insufficient. 
It  was  tentative,  where  Christianity  is  authoritative;  it  was  dim  and 
partial,  where  Christianity  is  bright  and  complete;  it  was  inadequate  to 
rouse  the  sluggish  carelessness  of  mankind,  where  Christianity  c£me  in 
with  an  imperial  and  awakening  power;  it  gives  only  a  rule  where 
Christianity  supplies  A  principle.  And  even  where  its  teachings  were 
absolutely  coinncident  with  those  of  Scripture,  it  failed  to  ratify  them 
with  a  sufficient  sanction;  it  failed  to  announce  them  with  the  same 
powerful  and  contagious  ardor;  it  failed  to  furnish  an  absolutely  fault- 
less and  vivid  example  of  their  practice;  it  failed  to  inspire  them  with 
an  irresistable  motive;  it  failed  to  support  them  with  comfort,  hope  and 
happy  immortality  after  a  consistent  and  moral  life. 

Seneca,  Epictetus,  Aurelius,  are  among  the  truest  and  loftiest  of 
pagan  moralists,  yet  Seneca  ignored  the  Christians,  Epictetus  despised, 
and  Aurelius  persecuted  them.  All  three,  so  far  as  they  knew  any  thing 
about  the  Christians  at  all,  had  unhappily  been  taught  to  look  upon 
them  as  the  most  detestable  sect  of  what  they  had  long  regarded  as  the 
most  degraded  and  the  most  detestable  of  religions. 

There  is  something  very  touching  in  this  fact;  but,  if  there  be  some- 
thing very  touching,  there  is  also  something  very  encouraging.  God  was- 
their  God  as  well  as  ours — their  Creator,  their  Preserver,  who  left  not 
Himself  without  witness  among  them;  who,  as  they  blindly  felt  after 
Him,  suffered  their  groping  hands  to  grasp  the  hem  of  His  robe;  who- 


478  SINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

sent  them  rain  from  heaven,  and  fruitful  seasons,  filling  their  hearts  with 
joy  and  gladness.  And  His  Spirit  was  with  them,  dwelling  in  them,  though 
unseen  and  unknown,  purifying  and  sanctifying  the  temple  of  their 
hearts,  sending  gleams  of  illuminating  light  through  the  gross  darkness 
which  encompassed  them,  comforting  their  uncertainties,  making  inter- 
cession for  them  with  groaning  which  can  not  be  uttered.  And  more 
than  all,  our  Savior  was  their  Savior,  too  ;  He,  whom  they  regarded  as 
a  crucified  malefactor,  was  their  true,  invisible  King;  through  His  right- 
eousness their  poor  merits  were  accepted,  their  inward  sicknesses  were 
healed;  He  whose  worship  they  denounced  as  an  " execrable  super- 
stition," stood  supplicating  for  them  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on 
high. 

Stoical  philosophy  had  no  influence  over  the  heart  and  character; 
"it  was  sectarian,  not  universal;  the  religion  of  the  few,  not  of  the  many. 
It  exercised  no  creative  power  over  political  or  social  life;  it  stood  in  no 
such  relation  to  the  past  as  the  New  Testament  to  the  Old.  Its  best 
thoughts  were  but  views  and  aspects  of  the  truth;  there  was  no  center 
around  which  they  moved,  no  divine  life  by  which  they  were  impelled; 
they  seemed  to  vanish  and  flit  in  uncertain  succession  of  light." 

But  Christianity,  on  the  other  hand  has  glowed  with  a  steady  and 
unwavering  brightness;  it  not  only  sways  the  hearts  of  individuals  by 
stirring  them  to  their  utmost  depths,  but  it  molds  the  laws  of  nations, 
and  regenerates  the  whole  condition  of  society.  It  gives  to  mankind  a 
fresh  sanction  in  the  word  of  Christ,  a  perfect  example  in  His  life, 
a  powerful  motive  in  His  love,  an  all-sufficient  comfort  in  the  life  of 
immortality  made  sure  and  certain  to  us  by  His  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion. But  if  without  this  sanction  and  example  and  motive  and  com- 
fort, the  pagans  could  learn  to  almost  do  His  will;  if,  amid  the  gross 
darkness  through  which  glitters  the  degraded  civilization  of  imperial 
Eome,  an  Epictetus  and  an  Aurelius  could  live  blameless  lives  in  a  cell 
and  on  a  throne,  and  a  Seneca  could  practice  simplicity  and  self-denial 
in  the  midst  of  luxury  and  pride,  how  much  loftier  should  be  both  the 
zeal  and  the  attainments  of  us  to  whom  God  has  spoken  by  his  Son? 
What  manner  of  men  ought  we  to  be? 


PROFESSOR  DAVID    SWING. 


BIOGRAPHY. 

Professor  David  Swing  was  born  in  Cincinnati,  on  the  18th  of  August,  1831.  Ha 
pursued  his  early  studies  at  Oxford,  Ohio,  but  subsequently  went  to  Miami  Univer- 
sity, where  he  graduated  in  1852.  Professor  Swing  and  President  Harrison  were 
classmates  at  Miami.  After  a  brief  pastorate,  Professor  Swing  was  appointed  clas- 
sical tutor  in  Miami  University;  a  position  which  he  filled  with  great  honor  for  more 
than  twelve  years.  He  then  removed  to  Chicago,  and  became  pastor  of  a  Presbyterian 
church,  on  the  North  Side.  He  soon  became  famous.  But  his  teaching  was  of  too 
broad  a  character  to  please  the  conservative  element  of  Presbyterians.  At  the  instance 
of  Dr.  Patton  he  was  tried  for  heresy,  but  the  verdict  was  in  his  favor.  Desiring,  how- 
ever, to  live  in  perfect  peace,  Dr.  Swing  left  the  Presbyterian  body,  and  became 
pastor  of  the  Central  Church,  which  now  worships  in  the  Central  Music  Hall,  Chicago. 
Professor  Swing  is  almost  universally  recognized  as  the  greatest  preacher  of  the  West. 
He  preaches  only  once  on  the  Sabbath,  and  usually  takes  the  months  of  July,  August 
and  part  of  September  for  vacation. 

PROFESSOE  SWING'S  SCHOLASTIC  THOUGHTS. 

Education  does  not  imply  stores  of  knowledge  or  information;  it 
means  the  expansion  of  the  brain.  The  mind  is  created  full  of  tend- 
encies or  aptitudes,  and,  expanded  by  education  and  training,  these 
tendencies  develop  into  great  forces.  The  soul  of  the  Indian  girl  con- 
tains a  tendency  toward  a  love  of  the  beautiful.  She  will  prefer  a  wild 
flower  to  a  stone  or  a  stick,  and  will  enjoy  a  local  love  song  to  quite  a 
high  degree.  This  aptitude  in  the  natural  wild  girl  can,  by  education, 
be  enlarged  in  successive  generations  until  we  have,  instead  of  this 
Indian  maid,  a  De  Stael,  or  a  Charlotte  Bronte,  or  a  Mrs.  Browning. 
By  this  process  of  enlarging  by  use,  a  muttering  red  man  becomes  a 
Cicero  or  Tacitus,  or  a  flowing  writer  or  an  exquisite  artist.  In  pursu- 
ing, for  thousands  of  years,  this  work  of  evoking  mental  forces,  two 
inquiries  have  attended  the  advancing  race — what  studies  do  most 
strengthen  the  mind  ?  and  what  kind  of  information  is  of  most  absolute 
value  ?  It  is  perfectly  safe  to  say  that  no  answer  has  yet  come  to  these 

479 


480  RINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

questions.  It  is  perhaps  equally  safe  to  sav  that  none  ever  will  come,  it 
being  probably  true  that  there  are  many  studies  of  equal  merit,  just  as 
there  are  thousands  of  landscapes  of  equal  sweetness,  and  thousands  of 
faces  and  forms  of  equal  beauty. 

For  many  centuries  it  has  been  assumed  that  the  study  of  the  dead 
languages,  that  is,  the  dead  great  languages — Latin  and  Greek — and  of 
the  higher  mathematics,  is  the  labor  which  gives  best  results,  the  exercise 
which  turns  a  plowboy  into  an  orator  or  a  statesman  or  a  philosopher. 
College  courses  have  been  run  amid  these  three  shapes  of  toil  and  infor- 
mation, and  it  came  to  pass  long  ago,  that  a  mind  not  reared  upon  this 
strong  food  was  deemed  still  an  infant,  having  known  only  the  weakness 
that  comes  from  a  diet  of  diluted  milk.  That  power  of  prejudice,  the 
power  of  what  has  long  been,  over  the  frail  form  of  what  might  be,  which 
we  see  in  old  medicine,  or  old  religion,  or  old  politics,  reappears  in  old 
•education,  and  a  scholar  or  a  thinker  without  the  help  of  Latin  and 
Greek  was  as  impossible  as  a  state  without  a  king,  or  a  salvation  without  a 
clergyman.  The  feeling  in  favor  of  the  classic  course  has  not  been  all  a 
prejudice,  for  that  was  and  is  a  noble  course  of  mental  progress,  but  it 
was  a  prejudice  so  far  as  it  denied  the  value  of  all  other  forms  of  mental 
industry,  and  failed  to  perceive  that  what  the  human  mind  needs  is 
exercise,  and  not  necessarily  Greek  exercise  or  Latin  exercise.  A  special 
must  not  thus  dethrone  a  universal.  A  king  may  be  a  good  governor, 
but  his  courtiers  and  sons  and  daughters  must  not  overrate  the  crowned 
man  and  predict  the  utter  failure  of  any  nation  that  may  ever  dare  attempt 
to  live  without  the  help  of  a  throne  and  royal  children.  Evidently, 
the  greatest,  widest  truth  is,  that  the  mind  is  made  more  power- 
ful by  exercise,  and  it  will  always  be  a  secondary  consideration  whether 
this  exercise  shall  come  by  loading  the  memory  with  the  words  and  forms 
found  in  several  languages,  by  compelling  the  judgment  to  work  contin- 
ually amid  the  many  possibilities  of  syntax  and  translation,  or  shall 
come  by  a  direct  study  of  facts  and  causes  and  laws,  as  found  in  science 
and  history  and  literature. 

It  favors  the  classic  course  amazingly  that  no  other  course  of  mental 
development  has  ever  been  attempted  in  what  is  called  the  great  era — 
the  Christian  era;  but  it  might  well  shake  our  opinion,  the  thought  that 
the  Greeks  and  Latins  became  great  without  being  fed  exclusively  upon 
&  diet  of  grammars  and  dictionaries  and  mathematics.  Richter  asks, 
"  Whither  do  those  sunflowers  turn  which  grow  upon  the  sun?"  So 
may  we  ask,  what  made  mighty  those  children  that  were  born  into  the 
classic  tongues?  What  made  the  man  Pericles  and  the  man  Plato?  and 
the  women  Sappho  and  Aspasia?  What  seven-years  course  had  they  in 


PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING. 

dead  languages?  There  can  be  but  one  answer,  and  that  must  be  that 
the  mind  is  made  powerful  and  great  by  all  far-reaching  after  the  truths 
and  fancies  around  it — by  a  constant  and  loving  effort  to  enlarge  its 
powers  and  accumulations.  Pericles  and  Plato  and  Cicero  and  Hum- 
boldt  and  Mill  and  Webster  and  Clay  were  educated  by  intellectual  toil 
and  hope  and  zeal  in  their  adjacent  worlds,  whatever  those  worlds  may 
have  been.  The  class-rooms  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  are,  indeed,  good 
worlds  for  the  forming  mind  to  master,  but  not  many  of  the  eagles  of 
genius  have,  comparatively  speaking,  taken,  in  such  linguistic  schools, 
their  first  lessons  in  lofty  flight-  All  the  ages  are  school-houses,  and  the 
great  ^  men  have  been  those  who  never  played  truant  nor  shirked,  but 
who  loved  the  school-house,  whether  it  was  by  the  Nile,  under  Kameses, 
or  at  Athens,  under  Pericles,  or  at  Oxford,  under  Elizabeth  or  Victoria. 
The  Latin  and  Greek  tongues  once  possessed  an  inestimable  worth, 
because  there  was  little  of  broad  and  powerful  thought  outside  of  those 
two  literatures,  and  within  them  there  were  a  power  and  beauty 
not  yet,  perhaps,  surpassed.  Soon  after  the  opening  of  the  Christian 
drama,  the  human  mind  became  enslaved  by  a  politico-religious  govern- 
ment, which  discouraged  all  thought,  except  that  which  tended  to 
establish  a  throne  and  mark  out  an  expensive  way  to  a  strange  heaven,  or 
a  still  more  strange  hell.  Mind  grew  narrower  and  weaker  as  the 
centuries  passed  by.  Scholars  were  content  to  write  the  life  of  some 
ascetic  monk,  and  to  fill  up  with  miracles  a  life  that  had  been  empty  of 
both  usefulness  and  food.  Far  along  in  the  clouded  periods,  when 
some  of  the  monks  happened  upon  Latin  and  Greek  books,  it  was  as 
though  the  deaf  had  begun  to  hear,  the  blind  to  see  and  the  dumb  to 
speak.  Compared  with  a  biography  of  some  whining  zealot,  whose 
glory  lay  in  the  scarcity  of  his  food  and  in  the  abundance  of  his  per- 
sonal dirt,  the  poems  of  Homer  and  Virgil,  and  the  orations  of  Cicero 
and  the  meditations  of  Plato  were  full  of  almost  divine  beauty,  and 
thus  exalted  by  a  value  both  intrinsic  and  relative,  Latin  and  Greek 
ascended  the  throne  in  the  great  kingdom  of  mind  and  sentiment.  No 
broader  or  freer  literature  than  the  old  classic  thought  has  ever  existed. 
From  Homer  to  Tacitus  there  was  freedom  of  the  mind.  No  church  or 
state  told  the  thinkers  what  to  think  or  express.  Indeed  each  ruler  was 
himself  a  scholar  of  his  period,  and,  republic  or  empire,  the  state  was 
always  literary  in  its  tastes  and  works.  The  rulers  and  statesmen  were 
all  poets  or  orators  and  philosophers,  with  full  permission  to  select  any 
theme,  and  to  say  upon  it  whatever  pleased  the  hand  that  held  the  pen. 
Through  the  Latin  and  Greek  gates  there  rushed  out  upon  the  dark 
"Christian  ages  a  stream  of  intellectual  liberty  and  power.  Out  of  stones 


482  KIXGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

so  noble,  the  colleges  and  universities,  which  now  reckon  their  ages  by 
centuries,  built  up  their  greatness  of  merit  and  fame,  and  our  age  will 
never  be  able  to  express  too  much  gratitude  toward  those  old  states 
which  furnished  the  new  epoch  with  such  foundations  of  mental  and 
spiritual  development. 

We  come  now  to  a  universal  phenomenon — that  of  the  pupil  excelling 
the  master.  Moses  was  surpassed  by  Daniel  and  Isaiah.  Watts'  engine 
is  superseded.  The  man  who  taught  music  to  Beethoven  is  forgotten 
in  the  splendor  of  his  humble  student.  Modern  Europe  has  moved  far 
beyond  old  Greece,  and  in  the  modern  languages  and  literature  and 
sciences,  all  said  and  thought  of  on  the  coast  of  the  old  Mediterranean 
finds  its  amazing  equivalent.  Once  the  roll  of  human  greatness  read 
thus:  Homer,  Hesiod,  ^Eschylus,  Euripides,  Pericles,  Plato,  Virgil, 
Cicero,  Caesar,  Tacitus,  and  the  splendor  of  the  catalogue  none  will 
have  the  rashness  to  deny;  but  in  the  later  centuries  the  book  so  long 
sealed  has  been  opened,  and  there  have  been  added  Dante  and  Milton 
and  Shakspeare  and  Goethe  and  Schiller,  and  such  thinkers  as  Bacon  and 
Newton,  and  such  students  as  Cuvier  and  Humboldt  and  Muller  and 
Darwin  and  Huxley  and  Agassiz.  By  these  enormous  additions  the 
equilibrium  of  the  old  earth  has  been  disturbed,  and  a  side,  which  once 
lay  in  perpetual  shadow,  enjoys  now  a  long  summer  time.  The  buried 
palms  and  ferns  of  the  Arctic  latitude  tell  us  that  what  is  now  the  North 
Pole,  and  the  region  of  almost  lifeless  frost,  was  once  a  land  upon  which 
the  warm  sun  shone,  and  over  which  hot  thunder-storms  passed.  Some 
external  force  came  to  make  the  planet  revolve  upon  some  new  inclina- 
tion of  its  axis,  and  to  remand  to  night  and  ice  a  continent  which  had 
once  enjoyed  the  seasons,  which  now  bless  America  or  France.  Into 
the  intellectual  world  came  a  wonderful  company  of  modern  princes — a 
Newton,  equaling  a  Plato,  and  a  Shakspeare  balancing  all  antiquity; 
and,  under  the  heavy  footsteps  of  all  these  moderns,  the  earth  has  been 
whirled  about,  and  a  longer  and  deeper  shadow  falls  upon  the  land, 
where  Demosthenes  once  thundered  and  Sappho  once  sang.  With 
this  tipping  over  of  the  earth,  the  Greek  and  Roman  lands  lost  their 
exclusiveness  of  empire,  and  were  invited  to  become  only  brotherly 
states  in  a  world-wide  republic.  The  reasons  for  the  long,  patient  study 
of  those  old  tongues  have,  in  part,  thus  passed  away,  since  they  are  no 
longer  the  languages  which  contain  the  most  or  the  best  ol  human 
learning  and  thought.  As  acquisitions  and  as  mental  exercises,  those 
languages  will  always  be  valuable,  but  this  will  take  place  henceforth,  in 
a  world  where  other  studies,  equally  valuable  in  all  respects,  will  present 
their  claims  to  the  student,  old  or  young,  abounding  in  wealth  or 


PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING.  483 

pinched  by  poverty.  As  language  is  made  up  of  embalmed  ideas,  the 
modern  tongues  must  be  confessed  to  be  powerful  rivals  of  Greek  and 
Latin,  for  the  world  having  grown  larger  since  Homer  and  Virgil,  the 
modern  tongues  contain  more  ideas  than  were  held  by  all  the  ancient 
kingdoms  and  republics. 

Not  only  is  it  questionable  whether  the  dead  languages  should  any 
longer  outrank,  as  studies,  the  greiLO  modern  dialects,  but  it  is  also  a 
matter  of  grave  doubt  whether  an  argument  can  be  framed  in  support 
of  the  educational  theory  which  devotes  years,  early  and  late,  to  the 
study  of  any  of  the  forms  of  speech,  ancient  or  modern.  It  may  seem 
a  form  of  mortal  sin  —  a  sin  beyond  the  reach  of  masses  and  holy  water 
—  to  confess  that  there  exists,  under  Heaven,  any  such  doubt,  and  yet 
something  must  be  said  on  this  linguistic  mania,  even  though  the  utter- 
ance should  prove  most  amazing  and  unwelcome.  Language  in  essence 
is  a  catalogue  of  names.  Words  are  the  names  of  things  and  of  actions. 
If  ./Eschylus  spoke  of  kumaton  anarithmaton  gelasma,  he  saw  and 
embalmed  in  sound  the  beautiful  truth  of  nature,  and  the  merit  lies  not 
in  the  sounds  of  the  vowels  and  consonants,  but  in  the  genius  that  saw,  in 
the  morning  ripple  of  the  sea,  ''the  numberless  smiles  of  the  waves/' 
What  the  human  soul  needed  was  some  one  able  to  lay  upon  the  broad 
ocean  that  sweetness  of  expression  which  had  been  sought  for  and  found 
only  upon  the  lips  and  face  of  woman.  If  a  smile  is  a  sudden  flash  of 
light  and  kindness,  then  what  an  interpreter  of  the  ocean  is  he  who  first 
tells  us  to  look  out  upon  its  widespread  and  delicate  smilings!  But  it  is  not 
the  language  that  is  so  great;  it  is  the  sudden  spiritualizing  of  the  ocean. 
Language  is  only  a  name  for  the  strange  beauty  of  the  water,  and,  hence, 
it  is  of  no  consequence  whether  the  name  be  "kumaton  anarithmaton 
gelasma,"  or  the  "  sea's  innumerable  smile,"  or  the  "  many  twinkling 
smile  of  the  waves,"  or  whether  the  Frenchman  or  German  or  Spaniard 
bedecks  the  simile  with  his  raiment  of  words  and  syntax.  The  expres- 
sion uttered  by  the  Greek  poet  becomes  the  world's  single  fact  and  prop- 
erty, and  the  possession  of  a  hundred  languages  by  any  one  individual 
will  not  add  anything  whatever  to  tnat  morning  and  evening  radiance  o£ 
the  Atlantic  or  Pacific.  WThen  we  who  had  spent  seven  years  over  Greek, 
first  stood  upon  the  sea-shore,  our  hearts  asked  the  old  dead  tongue  to 
help  us  estimate  that  infinite  scintillation  of  the  flood,  and  did  we  not, 
all  of  us,  bless  God  that  He  had  permitted  us  to  study  Greek?  Did  we 
not  feel  that  all  who  had  not  read  the  "Prometheus"  in  the  original 
were  cut  off  from  nature,  as  though  born  blind?  What  a  mistake  of  a, 
name  for  a  substance!  for  now,  when  all  we  ex-denizens,  far  away  at  last 
from  college  walls,  happen  upon  the  beach,  and  look  out  upon  the  blue,, 
32 


484  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

we  ask  for  no  more  blessed  expression  of  the  scene  than  our  own  tongue 
can  bring  us  in  its  powerful  sounds,  "  the  numberless  smiles  of  the 
waves/*  Goethe  expressed  the  same  thought  in  the  German,  Lamartine 
in  the  French,  and  thus  let  the  speech  change  a  thousand  times,  there 
is  only  the  one  thought  hidden  away  in  the  varied  accents. 

In  any  one  of  the  great  modern  tongues  there  is  now  stored  away  all 
the  facts  of  the  earth  up  to  this  date.  If  Virgil  asked  us  to  note  the 
beauty  of  the  moon  at  midnight,  when  it  passes  in  and  out  amid  fleecy 
clouds,  we  so  do,  and  our  heart  is  happy  or  sad,  as  was  his,  it  being  of 
no  importance  that  he  called  the  planet  "luna,"  while  we  call  it 
"moon,"  and  that  he  called  "nubila"  those  masses  which  we  call 
"  clouds."  Compared  with  the  grandeur  of  the  scene,  all  these  varia- 
tions of  the  vowels  and  intonations  are  things  of  childish  importance. 
It  might,  therefore,  easily  come  to  pass  that  the  student,  young  or  old, 
may,  in  the  study  of  many  tongues,  be  giving  years  of  time  to  accidental 
matters,  instead  of  to  those  facts  of  being  and  action  which  are  the  per- 
manent and  valuable  estate  of  man.  A  certain  Roman  orator  we  call 
Cicero.  In  his  own  day  he  may  have  been  called  Tullius.  Intimate 
friends  may  have  called  him  Marcus.  We  do  not  now  know  how  his 
family  pronounced  the  "c"  or  the  "u."  But  let  it  be  true  that  this 
lawyer  had  three  names,  and  that  there  are  many  possible  ways  of  utter- 
ing tbose  names,  the  one  fact  only  remains  valuable — the  man  himself. 
As  such  he  has  entered  into  the  world's  intellectual  and  moral  riches, 
and  we  have  him,  be  we  German  or  French  or  English,  in  our  lip  and 
tongue  service.  Compared  with  this  gold  of  possession,  all  else  is  dust. 
To  compare  the  thoughts  of  this  lofty  Roman  with  the  thoughts  of 
Burke  and  Pitt  and  Sumner,  in  the  arena  of  political  study;  to  pass  over 
to  morals,  and  compare  him  with  Puffendorf  and  Spencer;  to  pass  to 
religion,  and  compare  him  with  Wesley  or  Stuart  Mill  or  Jefferson;  to 
pass  to  rhetoric,  and  compare  his  mode  of  argument  with  that  of  Fox  or 
Webster  or  Clay — would  be  to  be  engaged  in  pursuits  greater  than  a 
mastery  of  these  tongues,  in  which  all  these  widely  separated  minds  may 
have  done  their  sincere  thinking  in  the  sight  of  man  and  God.  Their 
words,  like  their  clothing  or  their  food,  were  local  and  incidental. 
Indeed,  of  less  importance  than  the  food  these  chieftains  ate,  for  that 
food  might  be  good  for  us  to  imitate  or  avoid,  whereas  it  is  of  little 
•value  to  us  that  Cicero  called  that  being  Deus  whom  we  call  God,  and 
that  quality  "pietas"  which  we  call  "piety."  It  is  the  unchanging 
contents  of  the  earth  man  must  chiefly  seek,  and  so  brief  is  life  that  its 
lamp  burns  out  before  Ave  have  read  the  great  volume  of  events  and 
experiences,  and  no  time  is  left  for  the  study  of  those  strange  marks  and 


PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING.  485 

sounds  in  which  Egyptian  or  Persian  or  Athenian  or  Eoman  may  have 
made  record  of  his  life  or  wisdom  or  sentiment.  A  hundred  languages 
have  passed  away,  in  all  of  which  the  golden  rule  was  putting  forth  its 
slow  leaves,  and  men  care  not  with  what  gutturals  or  labials  or  aspirates 
the  first  moralists  began  to  express  the  worth  to  society  of  brotherly 
love.  As  man  himself  has  come  along  over  lands  which  have  become 
deserts,  passing  in  and  out  of  temples  and  homes  which  have  become 
dust,  and  falling  into  tombs  which  have  no  stone  and  by  which  no  flower 
blooms,  and  yet  he  is  here  to-day  in  divine  splendor;  so  truths,  like  the 
law  of  love,  have  come  along,  stepping  from  language  to  language,  and 
then  leaving  to  decay  or  neglect  the  stairway  of  their  long  ascent.  So 
subordinate  is  language  to  idea  that  the  Christian  world,  which  rests  its 
hope  upon  the  beatitudes  of  Jesus,  does  not  know  in  what  speech  He 
first  said,  "Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart."  As  the  sea  changes  its 
shore  line,  and  leaves  far  inland  temples  which  once  stood  where  the 
solemnity  of  the  waves  joined  in  the  worship,  and  yet  it  is  the  same  sea, 
flowing  and  re-flowing  in  tide  and  storm,  so  humanity  leaves  as  dead 
and  abandoned  its  old  shores  of  speech,  and  along  some  new  coast  of 
forms  and  sounds  flows  and  re-flows  with  a  tide  of  wisdom  and  emotion 
rising  higher  as  the  ages  pass.  Each  great  language,  English,  French, 
German,  is  the  present  shore  of  the  living  sea,  and  if  borne  into  one  of 
these  tongues,  that  tongue  is  for  you  or  me  a  measureless  main.  It  is 
the  aggregate  of  the  past  six  thousand  years. 

Do  I  speak  French? 

Not  yet  have  I  learned  the  universe  hidden  away  in  the  language  of 
my  birth  and  soul.  When  you  have  caught  up  with  the  world's  facts, 
then,  if  time  remains,  you  might  ask  what  the  Frenchman  would  call 
those  facts.  After  having  studied  the  life,  the  tendencies,  the  loves  of 
the  sunworshipers  and  the  Egyptians;  after  having  seen  the  Queen  of 
Sheba  journeying  to  behold  the  greatness  of  Solomon;  after  having  com- 
mitted to  memory  the  sublime  chants  of  Job;  after  an  inquiry  into  old 
liberty  and  old  bondage,  and  into  old  science  and  art,  it  might  be  of 
interest  to  know  what  letters  and  sounds  a  Frenchman  would  use  in 
expressing  the  world's  history,  but  to  know  all  about  the  wanderings  of 
Ulysses  and  his  son  is  the  thing  to  be  desired  more  than  the  information 
that  the  French  called  the  father  Ulysse  and  the  son  Telemaque. 

Let  it  be  conceded  that  persons  who  are  to  devote  all  their  life  to 
intellectual  pursuits  have  time  for  mastering  several  of  the  great  dia- 
lects, ancient  and  existing;  it  yet  remains  a  fair  inquiry,  what  quantity 
of  this  linguistic  work  may  enter  into  those  courses  of  study  over  which 
i;he  multitude  must  pass.  Must  young  persons  who  have  only  one  idea 


486  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

learn  ten  ways  of  expressing  it?  Or  must  this  person,  often  a  beautiful 
girl,  fincl^  ten  ideas  in  the  grand  language  of  her  native  land?  What 
made  a  Rubenstein  was  not  a  score  of  pianos,  but  it  was  genius  and 
labor,  practicing  upon  one  adequate  instrument.  It  is  well  known  that, 
when  some  years  ago  certain  thousands  of  families,  men  and  women, 
were  flying  before  a  great  conflagration,  one  citizen  was  seen  to  remove 
from  his  library  nine  violins  of  all  ages  and  pedigrees — a  scene  made 
laughable,  even  at  such  a  gloomy  time,  by  the  equally  well-known  fact 
that  this  lover  of  the  fiddle  could  not,  from  any  or  all  of  the  strings, 
elicit  more  than  the  one-ninth  part  of  a  tune.  As  the  cart-load  of 
instruments  moved  onward  toward  a  place  of  safety,  even  the  best 
friends  of  the  amateur  could  not  help  wishing  that  the  noble  gentleman 
had  less  of  fiddle  and  more  of  music.  In  the  department  of  fashionable 
education  a  similar  event  may  be  detected  in  the  fact  that  many  young 
persons  are  learning  more  ways  of  expressing  thought  than  they  have 
thoughts  to  express,  and  instead  of  having  ten  ideas  of  value,  they  give 
promise  of  reaching,  at  last,  ten  methods  of  stating  one  idea,  and  per- 
haps a  small  one  at  that.  For  suppose  your  beautiful  daughter  of 
seventeen  years  has,  by  much  toil  and  expense,  learned  to  say  in  five 
tongues,  "He  has  the  pretty  yellow  dog;7'  in  Greek:  Ehei  Jcalon  cliloon 
kuna;  in  Latin:  Habet  bellum  canem  gilvum;  in  French :  77  a  un  joli 
chien  dejaune;  in  German:  Er  hat  den  sclionen  gelben  Hund;  and  could 
she  by  industry  find  the  Chinese  and  Zulu  vowel  sounds,  used  by  those 
remote  people,  to  convey  that  idea  of  property  in  an  animal,  it  would 
be  well  for  the  girl  and  parent  to  remember  that,  amid  all  this  variety 
of  speech,  there  is  only  the  same  yellow  dog  all  the  time.  Under  some 
other  theory  of  education,  the  mind  might  have  mastered  the  whole 
science  of  Cuvier,  and  have  moved  away  from  the  yellow  dog  to  study 
the  whole  animal  kingdom,  from  the  elephants  of  India  to  the  garden- 
making  birds  of  the  tropics,  and  the  bank-swallow  of  America.  The 
poor  man,  in  the  cold  of  mid-winter,  does  not  need  ten  shovels  with 
which  to  put  one  ton  of  coal  into  the  scuttle,  but  what  he  craves  is  ten 
tons  of  coal  and  one  good  shovel.  It  might  be  of  interest  to  him  to- 
know  the  shape  of  a  Russian  or  Hindoo  scoop,  to  gaze  at  the  kind  of 
instrument  by  which  the  Hebrews  put  wheat  into  a  sack,  or  apples  inta 
an  ox-cart,  but  the  highest  happiness  of  the  multitude  will  always  come 
more  from  the  coal  they  may  possess  in  December,  than  from  any  col- 
lection they  might  covet  of  old  and  modern  utensils  of  lifting  and  mov- 
ing fuel  from  vault  to  grate.  If  the  remark  will  not  give  any  offense, 
it  may  be  let  fall  here,  that  there  are  thousands  of  boys  and  girls,  older 
and  younger,  whose  ability  to  express  thought  has  quite  outgrown  the 


PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING.  487 

thought  they  have  on  hand  awaiting  expression,  and,  having  mastered 
a  great  many  styles  of  saying  things,  they  are  finding  themselves  in  the 
position  of  having  nothing  to  say.  When  the  lovely  young  lady,  who 
had  mastered  her  French  and  Italian  and  Spanish,  was  led  by  some 
machine-loving  gentleman  to  gaze  for  a  moment  at  the  great  engines  in 
the  hydraulic  works  of  Chicago,  asked  him,  in  her  delight,  whether  the 
big  wheel  was  turned  by  men  or  by  a  horse,  it  gave  him  no  peace  that 
she  could  have  put  the  inquiry  into  any  one  of  the  modern  tongues. 
The  questions  placed  him,  for  a  time,  beyond  the  consolation  of  phi- 
losophy and  religion. 

The  prevailing  idea  among  the  upper  American  classes  that  even 
their  little  children  must  learn  French,  and  to  that  end  must  speak  it  at 
the  table,  is  highly  blamable,  for  reasons  more  than  one.  It  is  based 
upon  entire  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  it  will  require  the  life-time  of 
each  mortal  to  master  the  language  of  his  birth  and  country.  All  the 
young  years  given  by  Americans  to  the  study  of  French  are  years 
turned  away  from  the  greatest  language  yet  known  to  man.  All  the 
acquisitions  of  the  human  race,  all  the  sciences,  and  arts,  and  histories, 
and  sentiments  of  humanity  have  passed  into  the  English  tongue.  Each 
word  stands  for  an  idea,  and  in  each  great  modern  dialect  all  ideas 
reappear.  He  that  has  perfectly  mastered  his  own  language  has  a  store 
of  information  immense  in  bulk  and  rich  in  value.  To  excavate  many 
channels  for  a  river  is  to  lessen  the  unity  and  power  of  the  stream  other- 
wise majestic.  It  will  always  be  proof  of  some  blunder  of  judgment,  or 
of  some  stubborn  vanity,  when  Americans  will  be  found  using  a  little 
French  and  German  and  Italian,  who  have  not  mastered  the  English 
of  William  Wirt,  or  of  Tennyson,  or  of  the  eloquent  Ruskin.  It  is  not 
languages  man  needs,  but  language.  It  is  not  a  room  full  of  violins, 
but  the  power  to  make  music.  It  is  therefore  simply  painful  to  hear  a 
fashionable  girl  or  woman  or  man  combining  several  languages  in  con- 
versation, when  the  listener  knows  well  that  this  bright  talker  could  not 
by  any  possibility  compose  an  essay  in  the  English  of  Washington  Irving, 
or  Charles  Sumner,  or  the  poet  Whittier.  While  they  have  trifled  with 
grammars  and  lexicons,  or  have  said  elegantly  this  or  that  compliment 
of  the  season,  their  own  grand  English  has  moved  away  from  their  mind 
and  heart  just  as  husband  and  home  at  last  disappear  from  the  world  of 
the  artful  beauty,  leaving  in  her  possession  the  old  faded  bouquets  and 
the  old  yellow  cards  of  invitation  to  dinner  or  to  dance — invitations  sent 
and  accepted  long  ago,  when  the  forehead  was  smooth  and  the  lips  red. 

A  modern  language  is  a  prodigious  affair.  All  will  admit  that,  as  a 
system  of  sounds  for  expressing  truths,  the  Greek  language  has  no  equal, 


488  EIUGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

but  it  comes  short  in  just  this  particular — that  the  Greeks  had  not  as 
much  to  express  as  the  Germans  and  French  and  English  now  have  in 
their  keeping.  An  island  has  become  a  continent,  a  river  has  widened 
into  a  sea.  Each  of  these  three  modern  tongues  holds  in  its  embrace  a 
universe,  while  Greek  held  only  a  star.  To  master  one  of  these  new 
forms  of  speech,  is  the  task  of  a  life,  and  happy  the  American  who  shall 
ever  reach  in  his  own  tongue  the  ease  and  skill  reached  in  their  own 
tongue  by  Chateaubriand  and  Lamartine,  and  by  Castelar  in  his  dialect, 
or  by  Schiller  in  the  rich  German.  Such  a  result  can  not  be  reached  by 
attempts  to  study  the  words  of  Lamartine  and  Grethe,  but  by  studying 
the  same  universe  as  that  which  enveloped  them,  and  by  compelling  our 
own  English  harp  to  play  for  us  all  our  sincere  and  passionate  music.  It 
must  be  that  the  popularity  of  French  comes  from  a  forgetf ulness  of  the 
absolute  immensity  of  the  English  language — an  immenseness  which 
asks  for  many  years  of  early  and  late  study,  and  which  should  so  capti- 
vate each  one  born  into  its  confines,  that,  like  the  contented  soul,  one 
should  never  care  to  wander  away  from  home. 

The  chase  after  French  must  come  from  the  want  of  thought  as  to 
the  greatness  of  our  own  speech,  and  hence  must  be  one  of  the  popular 
delusions  of  the  age,  but  there  lies  against  this  worship  of  French  a  sep- 
arate objection.  In  our  generation  that  nation  is  not  coming  to  us  as 
Greece  came,  laden  with  deep  and  inspiring  thoughts.  Greek  speech 
was  once  the  speech  of  the  world's  greatest  minds.  We  recall  Plato  and 
Aristotle  and  Thucydides,  and  that  type  of  manhood.  These  were  the 
men  who  projected  Greek  into  the  old  courses  of  study.  But  that  old 
type  of  manhood  is  now  standing  in  England  and  Germany  and  America, 
and  the  French  verbs  and  nouns  and  adjectives  are  coming  to  us  only  in 
the  name  of  fashion  and  Paris.  "Parlez-vous  Francais?  "simply  means, 
"Have  you  seen  Paris?  "  Have  you  some  of  her  dresses,  her  dramas,  her 
wall  paper,  her  furniture,  her  luxury?  A  language  which  sets  us  all 
wild  for  elegant  clothing,  and  for  handsomer  furniture,  and  for  new 
shapes  of  wedding  cards,  and  which  so  delights  us  at  the  drama,  can 
never  come  in  the  dignity  of  those  old  classic  verbs  which  never  men- 
tioned any  thing  except  the  great  emotions  and  exploits  of  the  soul. 
The  Greek  showed  man  human  life  in  its  wars  and  travels  and  rhetoric 
and  logic  and  liberty  and  aesthetic  yearnings,  but  the  French  of  our 
boarding-schools  does  little  for  the  average  student,  except  enable  him 
or  her  to  read  the  bill  of  fare  at  a  fashionable  hotel,  and  to  call  by  the 
charming  name  of  buffet  what  once  was  a  sideboard,  and  to  buy  and 
enjoy  as  an  escritoire  what  had  once  been  known  as  a  writing-desk,  and 


PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING.  489 

to  feel  wise  over  that  progress  which  removes  from  a  lady  her  work- 
table,  and  places  before  her  a  chiffoniere.  So  far  as  the  study  of  this 
modern  dialect  inflames  the  young  heart  in  the  direction  of  bills  of  fare 
and  novelties  for  the  parlor  or  dining-room,  it  can  hardly  compare 
favorably  with  the  study  of  those  classic  forms  which  ignored  the  hotel- 
keeper  and  the  cook,  and  introduced  the  student  to  Homer  and  Cicero. 

The  world's  facts  and  experiences  being  gathered  up  in  language, 
there  must  needs  be  men  skilled  in  different  languages,  that  the  goods 
of  one  land  may  be  transported  to  another  country.  Thus  Champollion 
became  a  transfer  boat  to  ship  Egyptian  history  and  learning  from 
hieroglyph  to  French.  Others  came  to  forward  the  goods  from  French 
to  English.  Immense  is  this  carrying  trade — Carlyle  carried  Goethe 
across  the  channel;  Longfellow  has  brought  Dante  across  the  sea.  But 
not  all  the  educated  need  embark  in  this  form  of  importation,  for  what 
we  all  need  is  not  the  key  to  the  hieroglyphics  on  the  old  rocks,  but  the 
English  of  the  things  thus  recorded.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  jour- 
neying around  the  world  in  two  hundred  tongues,  but  it  is  not  an 
acquaintance  with  these  forms  the  young  or  old  soul  needs,  but  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  in  the  native  tongue  of  Him  who  must  live  and  die  among 
its  sublime  lessons.  Diamonds  may  be  re-set,  and  having  passed  a  gen- 
eration upon  a  queen's  hand,  they  may  be  seen  on  the  neck  of  her 
daughter,  and  at  last  be  transferred  to  a  coronet ;  but  the  essential  value 
is  in  the  glittering  stones  themselves,  be  they  on  forehead  or  finger.  It 
is  not  otherwise  with  the  truths  which  man  has  evolved  from  his  obser- 
vation and  experience.  They  are  all  one,  whether  they  are  whispered  to 
his  ear  by  English,  or  Greek,  or  Arabian  lips,  and  blessed  is  he  to  whom 
some  one  of  these  great  voices  has  come  with  its  infinite  utterances 
about  time  and  the  world  called  timeless.  When,  therefore,  a  distin- 
guished clergyman  declared  that  when  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  was  not 
keeping  well  up  in  Greek,  he  was  losing  the  use  of  the  right  arm,  he 
simply  blundered  along,  for  the  right  arm  of  an  orator  or  statesman  or 
thinker  or  preacher  can  never  be  in  any  manner  the  power  to  read  a 
foreign  text,  but  it  must  always  be  the  power  to  examine  or  establish  a 
theme  which  does  not  depend  in  the  least  upon  the  vowels  and  con- 
sonants of  a  time  or  place.  Not  a  single  great  idea  in  the  Bible  is  await- 
ing any  new  light  from  the  linguist.  The  Greek  and  Hebrew  lexicons 
can  do  nothing  toward  answering  a  single  one  of  the  problems  of  man- 
kind ;  can  shed  no  light  upon  the  existence  of  a  God,  or  a  life  beyond, 
or  upon  the  path  of  duty,  and  hence  a  long  dwelling  over  those  old 
forms  can  not  be  the  right  arm  of  a  clergyman.  His  inspiration  must 


490  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

come  from  ideas  mighty  as  the  human  race,  and  not  from  any  wonder 
ment  what  some  particle  may  have  implied  when  Moses  was  a  lad,  or 
when  John  was  baptizing  in  the  wilderness. 

Even  when  a  whole  life  is  given  to  one's  native  English  or  native 
French,  so  inadequate  still  is  that  language  to  express  the  soul,  that  it 
seems  a  form  of  wickedness  to  divide  the  heart  between  many  masters, 
and  to  have  no  supreme  friend.  Chateaubriand,  the  greatest  master  of 
the  French  tongue,  when  he  stood  near  the  Niagara  Falls  almost  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  and  saw  evening  coming  down  from  the  sky  upon  all 
the  sublime  scene;  saw  the  woods  growing  gloomy  in  the  deep  shadows, 
and  heard  the  sound  of  the  waters  increasing  its  solemnity  as  the  little 
voices  died  away  in  the  night's  repose,  said:  "It  is  not  within  the 
power  of  human  words  to  express  this  grandeur  of  nature/'  Skilled  as 
he  was  in  a  most  rich  and  sensitive  form  of  speech,  that  speech,  all  of 
whose  resources  he  knew  so  well,  now  failed  him,  and  his  spirit  had  to 
remain  imprisoned,  there  being  no  gateway  by  which  its  sentiments 
could  escape  to  the  heart  of  his  countrymen.  What  are  you  and  I  to  do, 
then,  if  we  have  not  loved  early,  and  late,  and  deeply,  our  own  English 
— that  English  which  is  now  the  leader  in  literature  and  all  learning ;  if 
we  have  not  mastered  its  words,  its  elegancies,  its  power  of  logic,  and 
humor,  and  pathos,  and  rhythm,  and  have  not  permitted  our  minds  to 
become  rich  in  its  associations;  if  we  have  for  years  gone  along  with  a 
heart  divided  in  its  love,  or  with  a  mind  that  has  studied  words  more 
than  has  thought  and  prayed,  and  laughed,  and  wept,  amid  the  sublime 
scenes  of  nature,  or  the  more  impressive  mysteries  of  mankind  ? 
"Parlez  vous  Francais  ?  "  Not  well ;  not  at  all ;  would  to  Heaven  we 
could  even  learn  to  speak  English  ! 


SPURGEON. 

THE  ELOQUENT,  THE  EARNEST  AND  THE  BELOVED. 


The  Rev.  Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon  is  the  Beecher  of  England. 
He  has  always  taught  a  religion  of  love  and  happiness.  He  has 
won  the  people  to  him  by  love,  and  won  them  to  Christianity,  by 
Christ's  love.  Beecher  and  Cuyler  and  Dr.  Hall,  after  hearing  the 
famous  Baptist  in  his  Tabernacle,  always  come  back  to  America 
enraptured  with  the  great  preacher.  Spurgeon's  Tabernacle  is  analo- 
gous to  Plymouth  Church  when  Beecher  was  at  his  zenith. 

C.  II.  Spurgeon  is  the  son  of  a  Congregational  minister.  He 
was  born  at  Kelvedon,  Essex,  in  1834.  He  became  a  Baptist  com- 
municant while  he  was  yet  a  very  young  man,  and  assumed  the  pas- 
torate of  a  Baptist  church  at  Waterbeach.  He  had  already  made 
local  fame  as  a  "boy  preacher."  From  Waterbeach  he  went  to  New 
Park  Chapel,  South wark,  London,  and  here  he  rose  to  immediate 
popularity.  This  was  in  1853.  From  the  New  Park  Chapel  he 
moved  twice  to  larger  halls,  but  they  in  turn  proving  inadequate,  the 
Metropolitan  Tabernacle  was  projected  by  him,  and  was  opened  in 
1861.  The  Tabernacle  was  dedicated  free  from  debt.  It  is  a  mon- 
ster building,  seating  between  6,000  and  7,000  people,  and  is  located 
in  Newington  Butts.  This  building,  with  some  modifications,  is 
the  present  house  of  worship.  The  Tabernacle  has  been  filled  on 
nearly  every  occasion  when  Mr.  Spurgeon  occupied  the  pulpit.  On 
several  occasions,  when  he  has  preached  in  a  larger  hall,  the  congre- 
gation has  been  still  greater.  At  the  Crystal  Palace  and  Agricultural 
Hall,  Islington.  20,000  people  came  to  hear  him.  Notwithstand- 
ing his  extraordinary  power  of  drawing  and  holding  hearers, 
Mr.  Spurgeon  is  not  an  orator  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  term. 
Neither  has  he  a  commanding  figure,  nor  an  impassioned  or  florid 
delivery.  People  go  and  listen  to  him  and  are  pleased  without 

491 


492  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

knowing  why.  They  go  again  and  have  the  same  experience  and 
then  try  again,  and  again  with  like  results.  The  speaker  is  ear- 
nest, and  ready,  and  is  fascinating  because  of  the  ever  present 
touch  of  human  kindness  in  his  tone  and  manner.  His  voice  is  clear 
and  sweet,  and  that  is  the  extent  of  his  qualifications  for  pleasing 
platform  effects. 

Mr.  Spurgeon's  teachings  have  been  strictly  orthodox,  perhaps 
nearer  to  Calvin's  than  to  that  of  any  teacher  of  later  times. 
A  couple  of  years  ago  it  was  announced  that  Spurgeon  had 
renounced  the  doctrines  of  the  Baptists,  but  while  his  action  led  to  a 
permanent  separation  from  the  Baptist  Union  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  the  Tabernacle  society  and  its  pastor  have  remained  Bap- 
tists in  all  the  essentials  of  doctrine  and  practice.  Mr.  Spurgeon 
withdrew  from  the  Union  because  he  believed  it  too  liberal  and  fol- 
lowing the  lead  of  the  Broad  Churchists  in  the  cardinal  doctrines  of 
atonement,  justification  by  faith,  incarnation,  total  depravity  and 
eternal  punishment.  After  several  conferences  the  difference  was 
narrowed  down  to  the  single  point  of  eternal  punishment,  and  the 
union  declined  to  make  belief  in  that  a  test  of  fellowship. 

On  the  question  of  communion,  Mr.  Spurgeon  occupies  middle 
ground  between  open  and  close.  Those  in  his  congregation  who 
are  Christians,  but  have  never  been  baptized  by  immersion,  may 
receive  communion  twice,  but  on  presenting  themselves  a  third 
time,  if  they  belong  in  the  neighborhood,  they  are  requested  to- 
become  members  by  the  usual  methods  or  retire  from  the  commun- 
ion service. 

Spurgeon's  salary  has  been  his  only  source  of  personal  income. 
He  has  never  spoken  as  preacher  or  lecturer  for  pay  outside  of  his 
pulpit.  In  his  pastoral  and  general  church  labors  he  has  been  aided 
by  his  wife,  whom  he  married  when  a  3Toung  man. 

When  I  asked  Mr.  Moody  what  he  thought  of  Spurgeon,  he  said : 

"  He  is  a  perpetual  stream  of  Christian  sunlight.  One  Sunday 
morning  in  London,"  continued  Mr.  Moody,  "  Spurgeon  said  to  me, 
just  before  he  commenced  his  sermon :  '  Moody,  I  want  yon  to 
notice  that  family  there  in  one  of  the  front  seats,  and  when  we  go 
home  I  want  to  tell  you  their  story.' 

"  "When  we  got  home,"  said  Moody,  "  I  asked  him  for  the  story, 
and  he  said : 

" '  All  that  family  were  won  by  a  smile.' 

« <  Why,'  said  I,  <  how's  that  ? ' 


MB.  SPURGEON,  WOULD  YOU  ALLOW  ME  TO  SPEAK  TO  YOU? 

bee  page  493. 


SPURGEON.  493 

"  <  Well,'  said  he,  <  as  I  was  walking  down  a  street  one  day,  I  saw 
a  child  at  a  window  ;  it  smiled,  and  I  smiled,  and  we  bowed.  It  was 
the  same  the  second  time ;  I  bowed,  she  bowed.  It  was  not  long 
before  there  was  another  child,  and  I  had  got  in  a  habit  of  looking 
and  bowing,  and  pretty  soon  the  group  grew,  and  at  last,  as  I  went 
by,  a  lady  was  with  them.  I  didn't  know  what  to  do.  I  didn't  want 
to  bow  to  her,  but  I  knew  the  children  expected  it,  and  so  I  bowed 
to  them  all.  And  the  mother  saw  I  was  a  minister,  because  I  car- 
ried a  Bible  every  Sunday  morning.  So  the  children  followed  me 
the  next  Sunday  and  found  I  was  a  minister.  And  they  thought  I 
was  the  greatest  preacher,  and  their  parents  must  hear  me.  A  min- 
ister who  is  kind  to  a  child  and  gives  him  a  pat  on  the  head,  why, 
the  children  will  think  he  is  the  greatest  preacher  in  the  world. 
Kindness  goes  a  great  way.  And,  finally,  the  father  and  mother 
and  five  children  were  converted,  and  they  are  going  to  join  our 
church  next  Sunday.' 

"  Won  to  Christ  by  a  smile ! "  said  Moody.  "  We  must  get  the 
wrinkles  out  of  our  brows,  and  we  must  have  smiling  faces,  if  we 
want  to  succeed  in  our  work  of  love." 

Speaking  of  love  one  day,  Mr.  Spurgeon  said  : 

"In  the  French  Revolution,  a  voum?  man  was  condemned  to  the 

*> 

guillotine,  and  shut  up  in  one  of  the  prisons.  He  was  greatly  loved 
by  many,  but  there  was  one  who  loved  him  more  than  all  put 
together.  How  know  we  this?  It  was  his  best  earthly  friend,  his 
own  father,  and  the  love  he  bore  the  son  was  proven  in  this  way : 
When  the  lists  were  called,  the  father,  whose  name  was  exactly  the 
same  as  the  son's,  answered  to  the  name,  and  the  father  rode  in  the 
gloomy  tumbril  out  to  the  place  of  execution,  and  his  head  rolled 
beneath  the  axe  instead  of  his  son's,  a  victim  to  mighty  love.  See 
here  an  image  of  the  love  of  Christ  for  sinners.  'Greater  love  hath 
no  man  than  this ;  that  he  laid  down  his  life  for  his  friends.'  But 
Jesus  died  for  the  ungodly !  He  is  the  friend  of  sinners.  There  is 
no  friendship  like  Christ's." 

One  day  a  poor  little  orphan  boy  in  London  came  up  to  Mr. 
Spurgeon  and  said:  "  Mr.  Spurgeon,  would  you  allow  me  to  speak 
to  you  ? " 

"  Certainly,"  he  said,  "  get  upon  my  knee." 

The  little  fellow  got  up  and  said:  "Mr.  Spurgeon,  supposing 
that  your  mother  was  dead,  and  that  your  father  was  dead,  and  that 
you  were  put  into  this  institution, and  that  there  were  other  little  boys 


494  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PUPILT. 

that  had  no  father  or  mother,  but  that  they  had  cousins  and  uncles 
and  aunts,  and  that  they  brought  them  fruit  and  candy  and  a  lot  of 
things.  Don't  you  think  that  you  would  feel  bad  'I  'Cause  that's 
me?" 

The  tears  came  to  his  eyes  and  he  put  his  arms  around  him  and 
kissed  him  and  gave  him  a  handful  of  money.  The  little  fellow  had 
pleaded  his  cause  well.  "  When  men  come  to  God  and  tell  their 
story,"  says  Mr.  Spurgeon,  "  I  don't  care  how  vile  you  are,  I  don't 
care  how  far  down  you  have  got,  I  don't  care  how  far  off  you  have 
wandered — if  you  will  tell  it  all  into  His  ear,  the  relief  will  soon 
•come." 

When  asked  which  was  the  best  sermon  he  ever  preached,  the 
eloquent  divine  said:  "  My  best  sermon  was  the  one  which  had  the 
most  love  and  the  most  Christ  in  it.  One  day,"  continued  Spurgeon, 
•"  a  young  man  preached  a  showy  sermon  before  the  great  Jonathan 
Edwards,  and  when  he  had  finished  he  asked  Mr.  Edwards  what  he 
thought  of  it. 

"  'It  was  a  very  poor  sermon  indeed,'  said  Edwards. 

"  '  A  poor  sermon! '  said  the  young  man,  '  It  took  me  a  long  time 
to  study  it.' 

"  '  Ay,  no  doubt  of  it.' 

" '  Why,  then,  do  you  say  it  was  poor  ?  Did  you  not  think  ray 
•explanation  of  the  text  to  be  accurate  ? ' 

"  '  Oh,  yes,'  said  the  old  preacher,  '  very  correct  indeed.' 

" '  Well,  then,  why  do  you  say  it  is  a  poor  sermon  ?  Didn't  you 
think  the  metaphors  were  appropriate,  and  the  arguments  conclu- 
sive?' 

"  'Yes,  they  were  very  good,  as  far  as  that  goes,  but  still  it  was  a 
Tery  poor  sermon.' 

"  '  Will  you  tell  me  why  you  think  it  a  poor  sermon  ? ' 

"  '  Because,'  said  the  old  minister,  'there  was  no  Christ  in  it.' 

"  'Well,'  said  the  young  man, '  Christ  was  not  in  the  text;  we  are 
not  to  be  preaching  Christ  always,  we  must  preach  what  is  in  the* 
text,' 

"  '  Then  don't  take  a  text  without  Christ  in  it.  But  you  will 
find  Christ  in  every  text  if  you  examine  it.  Don't  you  kno\v,  young 
man,  that  from  every  town,  and  every  village,  and  every  little 
liamlet  in  England,  wherever  it  may  be,  there  is  a  road  to  London  ? ' 

" '  Yes/  said  the  young  man. 


SPURGEON.  495 

"  t  Ah! '  said  the  old  divine,  '  and  so  from  every  text  in  Scripture 
there  is  a  road  to  the  metropolis  of  the  Scriptures,  that  is  Christ. 
And,  my  dear  brother,  your  business  is,  when  you  get  to  a  text,  to 
say,  "  Now,  what  is  the  road  to  Christ?  "  and  then  preach  a  sermon, 
running  along  the  road  towards  the  great  metropolis — Christ. 

" '  No,'  the  old  clergyman  continued,  '  I  have  never  yet  found  a 
text  that  had  not  a  plain  and  direct  road  to  Christ  in  it;  and  if  ever 
I  should  find  one  that  has  no  such  road,  I  will  make  a  road.  I 
would  go  over  hedge  and  ditch  but  I  would  get  at  my  Master,  for  a 
sermon  is  neither  fit  for  the  lord  nor  yet  for  the  peasant  unless  there 
is  a  savor  of  Christ  in  it.' " 

"  You  must  continue  to  call  upon  Christ,"  said  Spurgeon,  "  as 
the  Turkish  lady  who  fell  in  love  with  Thomas  a  Becket's  father 
called  upon  him.  Becket's  father,  Gilbert,  went  to  the  Crusades, 
and  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Saracens.  "While  a  prisoner  this 
Turkish  lady  loved  him,  and  when  he  was  set  free  and  returned  to 
England,  she  took  an  opportunity  of  escaping  from  her  father's 
house  —  took  ship,  and  came  to  England.  But  she  knew  not  where 
to  find  him  she  loved.  And  all  that  she  knew  about  him  was  that  his 
name  was  Gilbert.  She  determined  to  go  through  all  the  streets  of 
England,  crying  out  the  name  of  Gilbert,  till  she  had  found  him. 
She  came  to  London  first,  and  passing  every  street,  persons  were 
surprised  to  see  an  Eastern  maiden,  attired  in  an  Eastern  costume, 
crying, l  Gilbert !  Gilbert !  Gilbert ! '  And  so  she  passed  from  town 
to  town,  till  one  day,  as  she  pronounced  the  name,  the  ear  for  which 
it  was  intended  finally  caught  the  sound,  and  they  became  happy 
and  blessed. 

"And  so  the  sinner  to-day  knows  little,  perhaps,  of  religion,  but 
he  knows  the  name  of  Jesus. 

"  Take  up  the  cry,  sinner,  and  to-day,  as  thou  goest  along  the 
streets,  say  in  thine  heart,  '  Jesus !  Jesus !  Jesus ! '  and  when  thou 
art  in  thy  chamber,  say  it  still,  '  Jesus !  Jesus !  Jesus ! '  Continue 
the  cry,  and  it  shall  reach  the  ear  for  which  it  is  meant." 

A  sorrowful  Christian,  half  converted,  was  talking  with  Spur- 
geon about  Christians  enjoying  themselves.  "  I  don't  think  they 
should  try  to  enjoy  themselves  in  this  world,"  he  said,  "  I  think 
there  must  be  something  in  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  from  the 
•extremely  starved  and  pinched  appearance  of  a  certain  ecclesiastic. 


496  KLVG8  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPrf. 

Look,"  said  he,  "  how  the  man  is  worn  to  a  skeleton  by  his  daily 
fastings  and  nightly  vigils !     How  he  must  mortify  his  flesh ! 

"There  is  no  call  for  the  Christian  to  mortify  the  flesh,"  said 
Spurgeon.  "Let  savages  do  that,  not  Christians.  The  probabilities 
are  that  your  emaciated  priest  is  laboring  under  some  internal  dis- 
ease, which  he  would  be  heartily  glad  to  be  rid  of,  and  it  is  not  con- 
quest of  appetite,  but  failure  in  digestion,  which  so  reduces  him ;  or, 
possibly,  a  troubled  conscience,  which  makes  him  fret  himself  down 
to  the  light  weights.  Certainly  I  have  never  met  with  a  text  which 
mentions  prominence  of  bone  as  an  evidence  of  grace.  If  so, 'the 
living  skeleton'  should  have  been  exhibited,  not  merely  as  a  natural 
curiosity,  but  as  the  standard  of  virtue.  Some  of  the  biggest  rogues 
in  the  world  have  been  as  mortified  in  appearance  as  if  they 
had  lived  on  locusts  and  wild  honey.  It  is  a  very  vulgar  error  to 
suppose  that  a  melancholy  countenance  is  the  index  of  a  Christian 
heart.  Do  not  cut  yourself  with  stones,  and  weep,  but  look  up  to 
Christ,  with  a  smile  of  joy  and  hope  in  your  eye  I" 


REV.  JOSEPH  PARKER, 

THE  GREAT  ENGLISH  PREACHES. 


The  Kev.  Joseph  Parker  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Spurgeon  are  the 
great  preachers  of  England.  They  are  the  Talmage  and  Beecher  of 
Great  Britain. 

During  his  American  tour,  some  one  asked  Mr.  Parker  what  he 
thought  of  Bible  theology. 

"  We  must  have  some  system  of  theology,"  said  Mr.  Parker.  "If 
every  man  was  left  to  get  up  his  own  system  of  astronomy,  geologv, 
medicine  and  architecture,  things  would  go  on  but  slowly.  The 
Bible  is,  at  all  events,  something  to  begin  with." 

Speaking  of  the  fighting  doctors,  one  day  Mr.  Parker  said:  "One 
doctor  says  bolus,  and  another  says  globule.  Globule  calls  Bolus  a 
butcher,  and  Bolus  calls  Globule  a  quack,  and  the  hydropathist  says, 
'Beware  of  pick -pockets.'  And  Bolus  will  not  speak  to  Globule, 
though  Globule  says,  'Let  us  make  it  up  and  begin  again;'  and  Bolus 
says,  'Never,  as  long  as  I  live.  I  will  leech  and  blister  and  cup  and 
bleed  and  do  things  with  scientific  vigor.'  " 

Speaking  of  paying  ministers  Mr.  Parker  said:  "Why  people 
think  they  do  us  a  great  favor  by  coming  to  hear  us  preach.  A 
Scotchman  asked  a  minister  for  five  shillings,  and  in  return  for  the 
favor  said,  'I'll  give  you  a  day's  hearing  some  time.' 

"  It  is  undoubtedly  understood  by  many  that  in  listening  to  a  min- 
ister they  are  conferring  a  favor  upon  him.  A  person  once  asked 
me  to  lend  him  a  sovereign,  and  in  support  of  his  request  informed 
me  that  he  had  long  attended  my  ministry.  Possibly,"  continued 
Mr.  Parker,  smiling,  "the  man  richly  deserved  a  sovereign  for  having 
done  so ;  at  the  same  time  it  is  a  popular  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
minister  is  the  party  receiving  the  favor.  He  gives  his  hearers  his 


497 


498  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

best  thinking,  his  best  power  of  all  kinds,  and  it  is,  therefore,  a  pity 
to  show  him  thankfulness  by  borrowing  money  of  him." 

One  of  Mr.  Parker's  finest  bits  of  word  painting  was  his  descrip- 
tion of  the  great  W.  E.  Gladstone,  who  was  his  personal  friend: 

"If  you  ask  me  to  describe,  personally,  the  Rt.  Hon.  W.  E.Gladstone,"  said  Mr. 
Parker,  '  'I  could  not  do  so  beyond  describing  the  two  or  three  dominant  lines  in  his  face. 
Every  time  I  looked  at  him  he  took  on  a  new  aspect.  Every  thing  depended  on  the 
intellectual  action  of  the  moment.  I  could  not  begin  to  tell  you  of  the  grandeur  of 
that  rough,  strong  face  when  the  spirit  of  the  man  is  aroused. 

"When  he  is  amused  his  face  lights  up,  and  even  that  Ca?sar-like  nose  is  almost 
agreeable  as  a  patch  of  sunshine  on  a  great  crag.  Is  he  stern?  Then  let  his  antag- 
onist seek  some  other  man.  Is  he  listening?  He  is  an  eagle  on  a  mountain  crag  as  if 
intent  on  seeking  his  prey.  Then  that  voice;  was  there  ever  one  like  it  ?  Xot  boister- 
ous, not  loud,  but  round,  rolling  and  rich;  monotonous  indeed,  but  so  dignified  that  the 
monotony  is  forgotten  in  the  intellectual  action  that  the  voice  reveals.  It  rises  grad- 
ually and  you  are  not  aware  that  the  thunder  is  going  to  roar  until  you  find  yourself 
in  the  center  of  the  storm." 

After  speaking  of  Gladstone's  versatility  of  knowledge,  Dr.  Parker  continued: 
"Now  let  me  speak  of  Gladstone's  progressiveness.  Strange  as  it  may  appear,  Glad- 
stone began  life  as  a  Tory.  You  should  hear  him  pronounce  the  word  Tory  now. 
You  think  it  consists  of  two  syllables,  but  when  he  says  it,  it  seems  to  be  a  polysyl- 
lable. 

"  He  is  ending  his  career  as  a  leader  of  philosophical  liberalism.  When  the  strug- 
gle for  home  rule  in  Ireland  was  first  begun,  when  a  small  party  in  Parliament  made 
it  the  question  of  the  day  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  business,  then,  in  Gladstone's 
judgment,  it  was  the  demand  of  a  faction  and  not  of  a  people.  But  when  the  gen- 
eral election  in  Ireland  sent  80  out  of  103  Home  Rule  members  to  Parliament,  then 
Gladstone  recognized  the  claim,  in  a  substantial  sense,  of  a  nation.  Then  he  acted 
with  the  belief  that  Parliament  exists  for  the  people  and  not  the  people  for  Parlia- 
ment. 

' '  He  aims  to  convince  the  country.  The  bill  which  I  believe  will  form  the  text 
of  any  bill  that  will  be  introduced  in  Parliament  in  favor  of  home  rule  must  be  mod- 
eled on  Gladstone's  bill.  It  has  gone  so  far  that  the  nation  can  not  recede  from  that 
position.  We  must  allow  something  for  words  spoken  in  panic  such  as  followed  his 
bill.  Men  now,  day  by  day,  are  drawing  nearer  to  his  position.  Day  by  day,  men  are 
studying  Irish  history  and  character  and  historical  precedents,  and  the  end  is  not  far 
off.  When  Chamberlain  and  others  left  him  ard  he  stood  alone,  it  was  without  a  sign 
of  withdrawing  or  budging  from  his  position.  His  belief  is  that  righteousness  will 
prevail  in  the  long  run. 

"  The  Liberal  Unionists  are  a  curious  kind  of  inexpressible  middle  quantity.  Are 
they  repenting?  I  will  answer  by  an  anecdote.  An  American  lady,  in  retrenching 
expenses  in  the  household,  conceived  the  notion  of  beginning  the  operation  by  making 
that  part  of  her  little  boy's  garments  which  is  known  in  some  parts  of  America  by 
the  euphonious  and  pleasant  name  of  pants.  She  made  them  alike  before  and  behind, 
and  some  relative  of  the  lady  asked  how  she  succeeded.  The  lady  said:  '  Very  nicely; 
but  they  are  so  made  that  at  a  short  distance  off  I  can't  tell  whether  Johnnie  is  coming 


REV.  JOSEPH  PARKER.  49:> 

home  or  going  away.'  Some  relative  of  the  lady  must  have  made  the  political  pants 
of  the  Liberal  Unionists. 

"  If  the  leaders  withdraw,  then  the  people  will  lead  the  way.  That  is  an  Amer- 
ican idea.  No  aristocracy  can  really  understand  the  people.  I  don't  blame  the  aris- 
tocrats; they  were  born  so.  They  are  reared  to  believe  that  the  land  is  theirs,  whereas 
it  is  given  to  all  mankind.  Gladstone  lives  among  the  people,  and  he  stands  for  the 
people,  and  is  hailed  everywhere  in  England  as 'The  People's  Willie.'  He  can  not 
fawn  on  royalty. 

"  It  has  been  asked  whether  any  tenderness  was  in  the  Spartan  granite  of  Glad- 
stone's character.  If  tears  of  imbecility,  shed  over  the  drivel  of  hypocrisy,  is  what  is- 
meant  by  tenderness,  then  Gladstone  is  not  tender.  But  I  have  seen  him  after  din- 
ner, while  going  back  to  the  days  of  the  union  of  England  with  Ireland,  take  down 
from  the  shelves  a  history  and  read  aloud,  until  the  sorrows  and  atrocities  in  connec- 
tion with  that  event  caused  his  voice  to  break,  and  finally  he  would  have  to  lay  down 
the  book  in  tears.  The  question  of  home  rule  in  Ireland  is  always  with  him  in  con- 
versation. He  is  approaching  80  years  of  age.  When  last  I  saw  him  he  looked  as 
vigorous  and  ready  for  battle,  his  port  as  erect,  his  eye  as  bright,  his  voice  as  reso- 
nant as  ever." 

The  Rev.  Joseph  Parker  was  called  by  Plymouth  Church  to  suc- 
ceed Mr.  Beecher,  and  would  have  filled  the  place,  if  he  had  been 
left  untrammeled.  As  it  is,  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  preaches  in  Beech er's 
pulpit,  but  no  human  being  will  ever  fill  Beecher's  place.  God  made 
one  Beecher  and  destroyed  the  die. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED 

MEN. 

REMINISCENCES,  JOKES,  ANECDOTES  AND  ELOQUENCE. 
(BY  ELI  PERKINS.) 


STOKIES  ABOUT  MR.  WANNAMAKER. 

Postmaster  John  Wannamaker  has  been  for  years  super- 
intendent of  probably  one  of  the  largest  Sunday-schools  in  the 
world.  Mr.  Wannamaker  has  a  theory  that  he  will  never  put  a  boy 
out  of  his  school  for  bad  conduct.  He  argues  if  a  boy  misbehaves 
himself,  it  must  be  through  bad  training  at  home,  and  that  if  we  put 
him  out  of  the  school,  no  one  will  take  care  of  him. 

"Well,  this  theory  was  put  to  the  test  one  day.  , 

A  teacher  came  to  him,  and  said,  "  I've  got  a  boy  in  my  class, 
that  must  be  taken  out ;  he  breaks  the  rules  continually,  he  swears 
and  uses  obscene  language,  and  I  can  not  do  any  thing  with  him." 

Mr.  Wannamaker  did  not  care  about  putting  the  boy  out,  so  he 
sent  the  teacher  back  to  his  class.  But  he  came  again,  and  said,  that 
unless  the  boy  was  taken  from  his  class,  he  must  leave  it.  Well,  he 
left,  and  a  second  teacher  was  appointed.  The  second  teacher  came 
with  the  same  story,  and  met  with  the  same  reply  from  Mr.  Wanna- 
maker. And  he  resigned.  A  third  teacher  was  appointed,  and  he 
came  with  the  same  story  as  the  others.  Mr.  Wannamaker  then 
thought  he  would  be  compelled  to  turn  the  boy  out  at  last. 

One  day,  when  a  few  teachers  were  present,  and  Mr.  Wannamaker 
said :  "  I  will  bring  this  boy  up,  and  read  his  name  out  in  the 
school,  and  publicly  excommunicate  him." 

Then  a  sweet  young  lady  came  up,  and  said  to  him  :  "  I  am  not  doing 
what  I  might  for  Christ;  let  me  have  the  boy;  I  will  try  and  save 


500 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  501 

him."  But  Mr.  Wannamaker  said  :  "  If  these  young  men  can  not 
do  it,  you  will  not."  But  she  begged  to  have  him,  and  Mr.  Wanna- 
maker consented. 

"  She  was  a  wealthy  young  lady,"  said  Mr.  Wannamaker,  "  sur- 
rounded with  all  the  luxuries  of  life.  The  boy  went  to  her  class, 
and  for  several  Sundays  he  behaved  himself,  and  broke  no  rule.  But 
one  Sunday  he  broke  one,  and,  in  reply  to  something  she  said,  spit 
in  her  face.  She  took  out  her  pocket-handkerchief,  and  wiped  her 
face,  but  she  said  nothing.  Well,  she  thought  upon  a  plan,  and  she 
said  to  him  :  'Johnnie,  please  come  home  with  me.' 

"  '  No,'  says  John,  '  I  won't ;  I  won't  be  seen  on  the  streets  with 
you.' 

"She  was  fearful  of  losing  him  altogether  if  he  went  out  of  the 
school  that  day,  and  she  said  to  him :  '  Will  you  let  me  walk  home 
with  you?' 

"  '  No,  I  won't,'  said  he ;  '  I  won't  be  seen  on  the  street  with 
you.' 

"Then  the  young  lady  thought  of  another  plan.  She  thought  on 
the  'Old  Curiosity  Shop,'  and  she  said  : 

"  '  I  won't  be  at  home  to-morrow,  Johnnie,  but  if  you  will  come 
round  to  the  front  door  on  Wednesday  morning,  there  will  be  a 
little  bundle  for  you.' 

"  'I  don't  want  it,'  said  John,  savagely,  "you  may  keep  your  old 
bundle.' 

"The  young  lady  went  home,  but  made  the  bundle  up.  She 
thought  that  curiosity  might  make  him  come. 

"  Wednesday  morning  arrived,  and  he  had  got  over  his  mad  fit, 
and  thought  he  would  just  like  to  see  what  was  in  that  bundle.  The 
little  fellow  knocked  at  the  door,  which  was  opened,  and  he  told  his 
story. 

"  She  said :    '  Yes,  here  is  the  bundle,  Johnnie.' 

"  The  boy  opened  it,  and  found  a  vest  and  a  coat,  and  other  cloth- 
ing, and  a  little  note,  written  by  the  young  lady,  which  read  some- 
thing like  this : 

"DEAR  JOHNNIE: — Ever  since  you  have  been  in  my  class  I  have  prayed  for 
you  every  morning  and  evening,  that  you  might  be  a  good  boy,  and  I  want  you  to 
stop  in  my  class.  Do  not  leave  me. 

"  The  next  morning,  before  she  was  up,  the  servant  came  to  her 
and  said  there  was  a  little  boy  below,  who  wished  to  see  her.  She 


KIXGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

dressed  hastily,  and  went  down-stairs,  and  found  Johnnie  on  the 
sofa,  weeping.  She  put  her  arms  around  his  neck,  and  he  said  to  her: 

"  '  JVly  dear  teacher,  I  have  not  had  any  happiness  since  I  got 
this  note  from  you.  I  want  }Tou  to  forgive  me.' 

"  '  "Won't  you  let  me  pray  for  you  to  come  to  Jesus  ? '  said  the 
teacher ;  and  she  went  down  on  her  knees  and  prayed.  And  now," 
says  Mr.  Wannamaker,  "  that  boy  is  the  best  boy  in  his  Sunday- 
school.  And  so  it  was  love  that  won  that  boy's  heart." 

The  best  story  this  year  was  told  at  Saratoga,  at  the  memorable 
meeting  of  Mr.  Wannamaker  and  Jay  Gould,  who  were  introduced 
by  myself. 

"  The  details  of  the  office  of  the  Postmaster-general,"  said  Mr. 
Wannamaker,  "  are  often  very  disagreeable.  Changing  officers  who 
have  families  is  often  painful.  So  I  let  Mr.  Clarkson  attend  to  this, 
telling  him  to  do  every  thing  business-like  and  conscientiously." 

"Your  turning  this  work  over  to  Clarkson,"  said  Eli,  smiling,  "is 
like  the  case  of  a  young  woman,  years  ago.  in  our  church.  She  was 
a  good  young  lady,  but  would  always  wear  very  sho\vy  toilets, 
attracting  the  attention  of  the  whole  church.  One  day  some  good 
sisters  expostulated  with  her  about  her  worldly  ways. 

"  '  The  love  of  these  bright  bonnets,'  they  said,  '  will  draw  your 
soul  down  to  perdition.' 

"  Still  the  somewhat  worldly  sister  continued  to  wear  a  bright 
bonnet.  But  finally,  one  night,"  said  Eli,  "came  repentance.  The 
young  lady  came  to  prayer  meeting  in  a  plain  hat.  She  arose  and 
said : 

"  '  I  feel,  brothers  and  sisters,  that  I  have  done  wrong.  I  know 
that  my  love  for  bright  bonnets  was  ruining  my  future  life.  I 
knew  it  was  endangering  my  soul,  and  that  it  would  draw  me  down 
to  perdition.  But  I  will  never  wear  that  hat  again.  Never!  It 
shall  not  destroy  my  soul.  I'm  through  with  it.  I've  given  it  to 
mv  sister.'  " 


LOWELL'S   GREATEST  POEM. 

When  a  deed  is  done  for  Freedom,  through  the  broad  earth's  aching  breast 

Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling  on  from  east  to  west; 

And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels  the  soul  within  him  climb 

To  the  awful  verge  of  manhood,  as  the  energy  sublime 

Of  a  century  bursts  full-blossomed  on  the  thorny  stem  of  Time. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  503 

Through  the  walls  of  hut  and  palace  shoots  the  instantaneous  throe, 

When  the  travail  of  the  Ages  wrings  earth's  systems  to  and  fro; 

At  the  birth  of  each  new  Era,  with  a  recognizing  start, 

Nation  wildly  looks  on  nation,  standing  with  mute  lips  apart, 

And  glad  Truth's  yet  mightier  man-child  leaps  beneath  the  Future's  heart. 

For  mankind  are  one  in  spirit,  and  an  instinct  bears  along, 

Round  the  earth's  electric  circle,  the  swift  flash  of  right  or  wrong; 

Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet  Humanity's  vast  frame, 

Through  its  ocean -sundered  fibers,  feels  the  gush  of  joy  or  shame; 

In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race,  all  the  rest  have  equal  claim. 

Once,  to  every  man  and  nation,  comes  the  moment  to  decide,  . 

In  the  strife  of  Truth  with  Falsehood,  for  the  good  or  evil  side; 

Some  great  cause,  God's  new  Messiah,  offering  each  the  bloom  or  blight, 

Parts  the  goats  upon  the  left  hand,  and  the  sheep  upon  the  right, 

And  the  choice  goes  by  forever  'twixt  that  darkness  and  that  light. 

Hast  thou  chosen,  O  my  people,  on  whose  party  thou  shalt  stand, 

Ere  the  Doom  from  its  worn  sandals  shakes  the  dust  against  our  land? 

Though  the  cause  of  Evil  prosper,  yet  'tis  Truth  alone  is  strong; 

And  albeit  she  wander  outcast  now,  I  see  around  her  throng 

Troops  of  beautiful,  tall  angels,  to  enshield  her  from  all  wrong. 

We  see  dimly,  in  the  Present,  what  is  small  and  what  is  great; 

Slow  of  faith  how  weak  an  arm  may  turn  the  iron  helm  of  Fate; 

But  the  soul  is  still  oracular — amid  the  market's  din, 

List  the  ominous  stern  whisper  from  the  Delphic  cave  within ! 

"They  enslave  their  children's  children,  who  make  compromise  with  Sin!' 

Slavery,  the  earth-born  Cyclops,  fellest  of  the  giant  brood, 

Sons  of  brutish  Force  and  Darkness,  who  have  drenched  the  earth  with  blood, 

Famished  in  his  self-made  desert,  blinded  by  our  purer  day, 

Gropes  in  yet  unblasted  regions  for  his  miserable  prey; 

Shall  we  guide  his  gory  fingers  where  our  helpless  children  play? 

'Tis  as  easy  to  be  heroes  as  to  sit  the  idle  slaves 

Of  a  legendary  virtue  carved  upon  our  Father's  graves; 

Worshipers  of  light  ancestral  make  the  present  light  a  crime. ' 

Was  the  Mayflower  launched  by  cowards?  steered  by  men  behind  their  time? 

Turn  those  tracks  toward  Past,  or  Future,  that  make  Plymouth  Rock  sublime? 

They  were  men  of  present  valor — stalwart  old  inconoclasts; 

"Unconvinced  by  ax  or  gibbet  that  all  virtue  was  the  Past's, 

But  we  make  their  truth  our  falsehood,  thinking  that  has  made  us  free, 

Hoarding  it  in  moldy  parchments,  while  our  tender  spirits  flee 

The  rude  grasp  of  that  great  impulse  which  drove  them  across  the  sea. 

New  occasions  teach  new  duties!    Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth; 

They  must  upward  still,  and  onward,  who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth; 

Lo,  before  xis  gleam  her  camp-fires!  we  ourselves  must  Pilgrims  be, 

Launch  our  Mayflower  and  steer  boldly  through  the  desperate  winter  sea, 

Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal  with  the  Past's  blood-rusted  key. 


504  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


THURLOW  WEED   ON  INGERSOLL. 

Thurlow  Weed,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two,  delivered  this  little 
speech  before  the  Nineteenth  Century  Club : 

Mr.  President : — In  speaking  of  Colonel  Robert  G.  Ingersoll'S 
agnosticism,  I  will  say,  in  all  kindness,  that  the  Colonel  is  a  gentle- 
man of  education,  with  a  well-stored  mind  and  attractive  personal 
manners,  who  speaks  fluently  and  eloquently.  Colonel  Ingersoll  is 
not  a  believer  in  a  religion  which  has  been  making  the  world  wiser, 
better  and  happier  for  almost  nineteen  centuries.  Without  ques- 
tioning Colonel  Ingersoll's  sinceritj^  or  impugning  his  motives,  I  am 
persuaded  that  if  half  the  time  and  labor  expended  in  fortifying 
himself  with  arguments  against  religion  had  been  devoted  to  an 
intelligent  and  impartial  consideration  of  the  evidences  establishing 
its  truths,  the  country  would  have  had  a  gifted  follower  of  Him 
whose  mission,  labors  and  character,  viewed  merely  from  a  worldly 
standpoint,  inspire  admiration,  affection  and  gratitude. 

No  act  of  the  Savior's  life  and  no  word  He  ever  uttered  has 
been,  or  can  be,  construed  or  tortured  into  hostility  to  the  welfare 
and  happiness  of  every  member  of  the  human  family.  Human 
laws  are  founded  upon  the  divine  law.  All  that  concerns  our  hap- 
piness here  and  our  hopes  of  happiness  hereafter  is  derived  from 
the  Scriptures. 

On  the  other  hand,  what  has  infidelity  done  for  us  ?  Who  prof- 
its by  its  teachings  ?  After  depriving  its  followers  of  their  belief 
in  a  future,  how  does  it  compensate  them  ?  What  does  it  offer  in 
exchange  for  a  life  of  immortality  \  If,  for  example,  Colonel 
Ingersoll  should  be  summoned  to  the  bedside  of  a  dying  friend  or 
relative,  what  words  of  comfort  or  of  hope  could  he  offer?  Of 
what  service  could  he  be  to  that  stricken  friend  ?  Would  he  aggra- 
vate the  sufferings  of  one  whose  last  hours  needed  soothing  by  tell- 
ing him  there  was  nothing  but  the  cold,  dark  grave  awaiting  him  ? 
This  cruel  theory  is  repelled,  not  only  by  revelation,  but  by  the  laws 
of  nature.  .Nature  is  instinct  with  evidences  and  confirmations  of 
the  truths  of  revelation.  The  vegetable  and  floral  world  only  die 
to  live  again.  The  products  of  the  earth  live  and  die  annually. 
The  buried  acorn  reproduces  the  living  oak.  And  yet  infidelity 
insists  that  man,  the  image  of  his  Creator,  wonderfully  endowed 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.      505 

and  gifted,  under  whose  auspices  the  world  has  been  enlightened, 
elevated  and  adorned,  is,  after  a  brief  existence,  to  be  as  though  he 
had  never  been. 

Contrast  the  labors  of  Yoltaire  and  Paine  with  those  of  John 
"Wesley.  Can  it  be  said  with  truth  that  the  two  former  made  any 
one  better  or  happier  ?  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  followers  of 
John  Wesley  have  lived  and  died,  and  other  hundreds  of  thousands 
survive,  rejoicing  in  their  conversion  from  a  sinful  to  a  Christian 
life.  The  memory  of  Wesley  is  everywhere  cherished  by  the  good 
and  the  pure,  while  Voltaire  and  Paine  are  only  remembered  for 
the  evil,  rather  than  for  the  good,  they  did.  ^ 

If  it  be  urged  that  the  promises  of  the  Savior  have  not  all 
been  realized,  that  sin  still  abounds,  and  that  the  world  is  as  bad  as 
ever,  it  may  be  answered  that  religion  is  working  out  its  mission  : 
that  its  benign  influences  are  constantly  extending,  and  that  light 
is  irradiating  the  darkest  recesses  of  heathenism  and  idolatry.  It 
requires  no  argument  to  demonstrate  the  fact  that  our  race  is 
improved  by  civilization,  or  that  civilization  owes  its  origin  and 
progress  to  religion.  To  religious  influences  we  are  indebted  for  all 
the  reforms  which  benefit  society.  Our  Sunday-schools  were  insti- 
tuted in  obedience  to  a  divine  command.  In  these  schools  children 
are  taught,  "  without  money  and  without  price,"  all  that  concerns 
their  present  welfare  and  their  future  happiness.  These  intellectual 
nurseries  have  enriched  and  fertilized,  and  continue  to  enrich  and 
fertilize,  every  city,  village,  hamlet  and  household  throughout  the 
Christian  world.  If  religion  had  done  nothing  more  than  to  bless 
our  race  with  the  consecrating  influences  of  Sunday-schools,  scoffers 
should  be  shamed  into  silence. 

Infidels  of  all  ages  found  their  strongest  arguments  against 
revealed  religion  upon  what  they  regard  as  improbable.  And  yet 
we  are  not  called  on  to  believe  anything  more  incomprehensible 
than  our  own  existence.  We  might,  with  about  the  same  degree  of 
reason,  deny  this  fact,  as  to  refuse  to  believe  in  a  future  existence. 
We  know  that  we  live  in  this  world.  Is  it  unreasonable  to  believe 
that  we  may  live  in  another  world  ?  If  we  are  to  believe  nothing 
but  what  we  understand,  we  should  go  through  life  incredulous  and 
aimless.  We  are  ready  enough  to  believe  on  information  the  things 
that  relate  to  this  world.  But  we  are  slow  to  believe  in  prophecy 
and  revelation,  though  both  are  corroborated  by  observation,  experi- 
ence and  events.  Infidelity,  claiming  superiority  in  "  reason ';  and 


506  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

common  sense,  asks  us  to  believe  that  all  of  grandeur  and  sublimity, 
all  of  vastness  and  power  in  the  beautiful  heavens  and  upon  the 
bountiful  earth,  comes  by  chance ;  that  every  thing  is  self-created 
and  self-existing,  and  that  law,  order  and  harmony  are  accidents. 
Those  who  accept  this  theory  would  find  its  application  to  their  bus- 
iness affairs  anything  but  advantageous.  Infidelity  and  communism 
are  kindred  in  character,  and  aim,  by  different  methods,  to  under- 
mine the  sanctions  and  securities  upon  which  the  world's  welfare 
and  happiness  rest.  Infidelity  strikes  at  religion,  communism  at 
property.  One  seeks  to  weaken  our  faith,  and  the  other  demands 
for  the  idle  and  worthless  an  equal  share  in  the  savings  of  the  indus- 
frious  and  frugal.  Agrarianism  (communism  of  a  milder  type) 
came  to  us  some  forty  years  ago  from  England,  with  Fanny  Wright 
and  Robert  Dale  Owen  as  its  apostles.  This  bad  element  has  been 
reinforced  by  communism  from  France  and  Germany.  All  three 
are  working  out  their  destructive  mission  in  a  city  where,  unhappily, 
they  find  co-operation  and  sympathy.  To  these  birds  of  ill  omen 
comes  infidelity,  equally  aggressive,  with  Robert  G.  Ingersoll  as  its 
teacher.  If  it  be  said  that,  unlike  the  communistic  leaders,  Mr. 
Ingersoll  is  a  "  gentleman  and  a  scholar,"  the  danger  is  thereby 
intensified. 

The  strongest  argument  urged  against  Christianity,  from  the 
days  of  Voltaire  and  Paine,  is  that  bad  men  made  a  profession  of 
it;  that  hypocrites  are  found  in  all  our  churches.  This  is  true. 
But  is  it  not  equally  true  that  everything  intrinsically  valuable  gets 
debased?  Frauds  are  practiced  in  business.  The  richest  fabrics 
have  their  imitations.  Gold  and  silver  coins  are  debased  or  coun- 
terfeited. T,he  evils,  however,  resulting  from  impositions  of  this 
nature  are  not  serious.  The  intelligence  of  our  people  and  the  pen- 
alties to  which  offenders  are  subjected  afford  adequate  protection, 
and  for  one  hypocrite  who  makes  a  false  profession  there  are 
at  least  nine  conscientious,  devoted  Christians. 

Another  argument  against  religion  is  that  our  Savior  was  an 
impostor,  and  as  a  corollary  that  His  teachings  exert  a  baneful  influ- 
ence. And  yet  both  of  the  accusations  are  disproved  by  the  experi- 
ence of  2,000  years.  If  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  been  an  impostor, 
His  name  and  every  thing  connected  with  it  would  hardly  have  sur- 
vived a  second  generation.  There  would  then  have  been  no  occa- 
sion for  the  labors  of  Voltaire,  Paine  or  Ingersoll.  Other  and 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  50? 

• 

numerous  false  teachers  have  appeared  and  disappeared.  But  time 
and  truth  havre  been  attesting  the  divinity  of  our  Savior.  His  apos- 
tles and  their  successors,  obeying  His  instructions,  have  carried  and 
are  carrying  the  glad  tidings  to  the  uttermost  ends  of  the  earth. 
As  far  and  as  fast  as  this  gospel  travels,  the  world  is  civilized  and 
its  inhabitants  benefited. 

Civilization  and  its  beneficent  institutions  abound  by  the  relig- 
ion which  our  Savior  instructed  His  apostles  to  preach  to  the 
heathen.  Geographical  lines  are  not  more  distinctly  established 
than  those  which  mark  the  progress  of  missionaries ;  and  while 
religious  light  brightens  the  Christian  world,  its  rays  dawn  upon 
the  darkest  portions  of  the  earth.  What  have  the  doctrines  of 
Confucius,  Mohammed  and  other  false  teachers  done  for  their  fol- 
lowers but  to  hold  them  for  €enturies  in  ignorance  and  barbarism  ? 
[Applause.] 


DON  PIATT'S  FUNNY   SPEECH. 

Don  Piatt,  the  great  satirest  and  humorist  was  called  upon  for  a 
speech  before  the  Hatchet  Club,  on  the  22d  of  February,  Washington's 
birthday.  He  arose  and  said. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — Mark  Twain  and  Petroleum  V.  Nasby,  dined 
with  Eli  Perkins  at  the  latter's  residence  in  New  York,  on  Washington's 
birthday,  last  year.  The  conversation  at  that  dinner  I  shall  never  for- 
get. The  stories  told  and  the  truthful  reminiscences  brought  out  at  that 
dinner  would  fill  a  small  booK. 

After  the  last  course,  and  after  the  ladies  had  withdrawn,  the  con- 
versation turned  upon  horses.  Finally  Mr.  Twain  laid  down  his  cigar 
and  asked  Perkins  and  Nasby  if  they  had  ever  heard  of  a  fast  horse  he 
(Mark)  used  to  own  in  Nevada. 

"  I  think  not,"  said  Nasby. 

"Well,  gentlemen,"  continued  Mr.  Twain,  as  lie  blew  a  smoke  ring 
and  watched  it,  "  that  was  a  fast  horse.  He  was  a  very  fast  horse.  But 
he  was  so  tough-bitted  that  I  couldn't  guide  him  with  a  bit  at  all." 

"How  did  you  guide  him?"  asked  Eli. 

"  Well,  gentlemen,  I  had  to  guide  him  with  electricity.  I  had  to 
have  wire  lines  and  had  to  keep  a  battery  in  the  wagon  all  the  time  in 
order  to  stop  him." 

"Why  didn't  you  stop  him  by  hollering  who-a?"  asked  Eli. 


508  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Stop  him  by  hollering  who-a!"  exclaimed  Mr.  Twain.  "Why  I 
could  not  holler  loud  enough  to  make  that  horse  hear  me.  He  traveled  so 
fast  that  no  sound  ever  reached  him  from  behind.  [Laughter.]  He  went 
faster  than  the  sound,  sir.  Holler  who-a  and  he'd  be  in  the  next  town 
before  the  sound  of  your  voice  could  reach  the  dash  board.  [Laughter.] 
'  Travel  fast?*  I  should  say  he  could.  Why  I  once  started  from  Virginia 
City  for  Meadow  Creek  right  in  front  of  one  of  the  most  dreadful  rain- 
storms we  ever  had  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Wind  and  rain?  Why  the 
wind  -blew  eighty  miles  an  hour  and  the  rain  fell  in  sheets.  I  drove 
right  before  that  storm  for  three  hours — just  on  the  edge  of  that  hurricane 
and  rain  for  forty  miles. '' 

"  Didn't  you  get  drenched  ?"  asked  Perkins. 

"Drenched?  No,  sir.  Why,  I  tell  you,  I  drove  right  in  front  of  that 
rainstorm.  I  could  lean  forward  and  let  the  sun  shine  on  me,  or  lean 
backward  and  feel  rain  and  catch  hailstones.  When  the  hurricane  slacked 
up  the  horse  slacked  up,  too,  and  when  it  blew  faster  I  just  said  '  g — Ik!' 
to  the  horse  and  touched  the  battery,  and  away  we  went.  Now  I  don't 
like  to  lie  about  my  horse,  Mr.  Perkins,  and  I  don't  ask  you  to  believe 
what  I  say,  but  I  tell  you  truthfully  that  when  I  got  to  Meadow  Creek 
my  linen  duster  was  as  dry  as  powder.  Not  a  drop  of  rain  on  the  wagon 
seat  either,  while  the  wagon  box  was  level  full  of  hailstones  and  water, 
or  Fm  a ,  a "  [Great  laughter.] 

"Look  here  gentlemen,"  interrupted  Mr.  Nasby,  "  speaking  of  the 
truth,  did  you  ever  hear  about  my  striking  that  man  in  Toledo?  " 

Mark  said  he  had  never  heard  about  it. 

"Well,  sir,  it  was  this  way:  There  was  a  man  there— one  of  those 
worldly,  skeptical  fellows,  who  questioned  my  veracity  one  day.  He 
said  he  had  doubts  about  the  truthfulness  of  one  of  my  cross-roads  inci- 
dents. He  didn't  say  it  publicly,  but  privately.  I'm  sorry,  for  the  sake 
of  his  wife  and  family,  now,  that  he  said  it  at  all — and  sorry  for  the  man, 
too,  because  he  wasn't  prepared  to  go.  If  he'd  been  a  Christian  it 
would  have  been  different.  I  say  I  didn't  want  to  strike  this  man, 
because  it's  a  bad  habit  to  get  into — this  making  a  human  chaos  out  of  a 
fellow  man.  But  he  questioned  my  veracity  and  the  earthquake  came. 
I  struck  him  once — just  once.  I  remember  he  was  putting  down  a 
carpet  at  the  time  and  had  his  mouth  full  of  carpet-tacks.  But  a  man 
can't  stop  to  discount  carpet-tacks  in  a  man's  mouth,  when  he  questions 
your  veracity,  can  he?  I  never  do.  I  simply  struck  the  blow." 

"Did  it  hurt  the  man  much?"  asked  Eli. 

"I  don't  think  it  did.  It  was  too  sudden.  The  bystanders  said  if  I 
was  going  to  strike  a  second  blow  they  wanted  to  move  out  of  the 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.     509 

State.  Now,  I  don't  want  you  to  believe  me,  and  I  don't  expect  you 
will,  but  to  tell  you  the  honest  truth,  Mr.  Perkins,  I  squashed  that  man 
right  down  into  a  door-mat,  and  his  own  wife,  who  was  tacking  down 
one  edge  of  the  carpet  at  the  time,  came  right  along  and  took  him  for  a 
gutta-percha  rug,  and  actually  tacked  him  down  in  front  of  the  door. 
Poor  woman;  she  never  knew  ehe  was  tacking  down  her  own  husband! 
What  became  of  the  tacks  in  his  mouth?  you  ask.  Well,  the  next  day 

the  boys  pulled  them  out  of  the  bottoms  of  his  overshoes,  and " 

[Loud  laughter  drowned  the  sp  aker's  voice.] 

"Gentlemen!"  interrupted  Eli,  "it  does  me  good  to  hear  such 
truths.  I  believe  every  word  you  say,  and  I  feel  that  I  ought  to 
exchange  truths  with  you.  Now,  did  you  ever  hear  how  I  went  to 
prayer-meeting  at  New  London,  Conn.,  in  a  rain  storm?" 

They  said  they  had  not. 

"Well,  gentlemen,"  said  Eli,  "one  day  I  started  for  the  New  London 

prayer-meeting  on  horseback.     When  I  got  about  half-way  there,  there 

came  up  a  fearful  storm.      The  wind  blew  a  hurricane,  the  rain  fell  in 

torrents,    the  lightning    gleamed  through  the   sky,    and   I  went  and 

crouched  down    behind   a  large   barn.     But  pretty  soon  the  lightning 

struck  the   barn,  knocked  it   into  a   thousand  splinters,  and    sent  my 

horse  whirling  over  into  a  neighboring  corn  patch." 

"Did  it  kill  you,  Mr.  Perkins?"  asked  Mr.  Twain,  the  tears  rolling 
down  his  cheeks. 

"No,  it  didn't  kill  me,"  I  said,  "but  I  was  a  good  deal  discouraged." 

"Well,  what  did  you  do,  Mr.  Perkins?" 

"What  did  I  do?  Well,  gentlemen,  to  tell  the  honest  Connecticut 
truth,  I  went  right  out  into  the  pasture,  took  off  my  coat,  humped  up 
my  bare  back,  and  took  eleven  clips  of  lightning  right  on  my  bare  back- 
bone, drew  the  electricity  all  out  of  the  sky,  and  then  got  on  to  my  horse 
and  rode  into  New  London  in  time  to  lead  at  the  evening  prayer- 
meeting. 

"Arise  and  sing!"     [Loud  laughter.] 


JOSEPH  COOK. 

When  Joseph  Cook  was  asked  if  any  thing  came  by  chance, 
he  said : 

"No,  no,  no;  God  and  His  law  are  behind  every  thing." 

"  How  will  you  prove  it  ?  " 

"  By  this  illustration,"  said  Mr.  Cook :  "  The  Scotch  philosopher, 
Beattie,  once  went  into  his  garden  and  drew  in  the  soft  earth  the 


510  KIXGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

letters  C.  "W.  B.  He  sowed  these  furrows  with  garden  cresses, 
smoothed  the  earth  and  went  away.  These  were  the  initials  of  his 
little  boy,  who  had  never  been  taught  any  thing  concerning  God, 
although  he  had  learned  to  read.  '  Ten  days  later,'  says  Beattie, 
'  the  child  came  running  to  me  in  amazement,  and  said :  "  My  name 
has  grown  in  the  garden." 

" '  "Well,  what  if  it  has  ? '  said  the  philosopher :  '  that  is  nothing/ 
and  turned  away. 

"  But  the  child  took  his  father  by  the  hand,  led  him  to  the 
garden  plat,  and  said:  *  What  made  those  letters  ? ' 

"  '  I  see  very  well,'  the  father  replied,  '  that  the  initials  of  your 
name  have  grown  up  here  in  the  garden.  That  is  an  accident,'  and 
he  turned  away  again. 

"  The  child  followed  him,  took  him  by  the  hand,  brought  him 
back  to  the  spot,  and  said,  very  earnestly :  '  Some  one  must  have 
planted  the  seeds  to  make  the  letters.' 

" '  Then  you  believe  those  letters  can  not  have  been  produced 
by  chance,'  said  the  father. 

"  '  I  believe  somebody  planted  them,'  said  the  son,  who  probably 
did  not  know  what  chance  meant. 

" '  Yery  well,'  said  the  father,  '  look  at  your  hands  and  your  feet ; 
consider  your  eyes  and  all  your  members.  Are  they  not  skillfully 
arranged  ?  How  did  your  hand  get  its  shape  ? ' 

" '  Somebody  must  have  made  my  hands,'  said  the  boy. 

"  '  "Who  is  this  some  one  ? '  asked  the  father. 

"  '  I  do  not  know,'  said  the  child. 

" '  Do  you  feel  certain  that  somebody  planted  those  seeds,  and 
sure  that  some  one  made  your  hands  ? ' 

"  '  Yes,'  said  the  boy,  with  great  earnestness. 

"  And  then  the  father  communicated  to  the  child  the  name  of 
the  great  Being  by  whom  all  things  are  made,  and  the  boy  never  for- 
got the  lesson  nor  the  circumstances  which  led  to  it." 


DR.  PENTECOST  ON  GOD'S  APPROVAL. 

"  One  winter's  day,"  said  Dr.  Pentecost,  "  I  was  at  a  railway 
station  at  New  York.  There  was  a  large  crowd  of  persons  desiring 
to  go  from  New  York  to  Boston,  and  we  all  had  to  pass  through  a 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  511 

narrow  way  by  the  gatekeeper.  Everybody  had  to  show  his  ticket, 
and,  as  usual,  there  were  many  who  could  not  conveniently  find 
them.  They  said  they  had  them,  but  the  gatekeeper  was  inexor- 
able. 

"  '  You  must  show  your  ticket,'  he  said,  '  if  you  please.' 
"  There  was  both  grumbling  and  swearing  on  the  part  of  the 
passengers.     After  most  of  them  had  passed  through,  a  gentleman 
said  to  the  ticket-collector : 

" '  You  don't  seem  to  be  very  popular  with  this  crowd.' 
"  The  ticket-collector  just  cast  his  eyes  upwards  to  the  ceiling  on 
the  floor  above,  where  the  superintendent's  oflice  was,  and  said : 

"  '  I  don't  care  anything  about  being  popular  with  this  crowd ; 
all  I  care  for  is  to  be  popular  with  the  man  up  there.' " 


EDMUND  CLAKENCE  STEDMAN. 

BIOGRAPHY. 

Edmund  Clarence  Stedman  was  born  in  Hartford,  October  8,  1833.  He  Is  now  a 
member  of  the  N.  Y.  Stock  Exchange,  where  he  is  called  the  banker-poet.  Mr.  Sted- 
man has  made  himself  famous  as  a  poet,  critic  and  journalist.  His  most  ambitious 
critical  work  has  been  the  publication  of  his  "  History  of  American  Literature"  in 
nine  octavo  volumes,  completed  during  the  present  year. 

Mr  Stedman  has  written  volumes,  but  we  select  only  the  sketch : 

KEARNY  AT  SEVEN  PINES. 

So  that  soldiery  legend  is  still  on  its  journey — 

That  story  of  Kearny  who  knew  not  to  yield? 
'Twas  the  day  when,  with  Jameson,  fierce  Berry  and  Birney, 

Against  twenty  thousand  he  rallied  the  field. 
Where  the  red  volleys  poured,  where  the  clamor  rose  highest, 

Where  the  dead  lay  in  clumps  through  the  dwarf -oak  and  pine; 
Where  the  aim  from  the  thicket  was  surest  and  nighest 

No  charge  like  Phil  Kearny's  along  the  whole  line. 

When  the  battle  went  ill,  and  the  bravest  were  solemn, 

Near  the  dark  Seven  Pines,  where  we  still  held  our  ground, 
He  rode  down  the  length  of  the  withering  column, 

And  his  heart  at  our  war-cry  leaped  up  with  a  bound; 
He  snuffed,  like  his  charger,  the  wind  of  the  powder, 

His  sword  waved  us  on,  and  we  answered  the  sign; 
Loud  our  cheers  as  we  rushed,  but  his  laugh  rang  the  louder, — 

"  There's  the  devil's  own  fun,  boys,  along  the  whole  linel " 


612  KOTOS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PTTPILT. 

How  he  strode  his  brown  steed!    How  we  saw  his  blade  brighten 

In  the  one  hand  still  left — and  the  reins  in  his  teeth! 
He  laughed  like  a  boy  when  the  holidays  heighten,  , 

But  a  soldier's  glance  shot  from  his  visor  beneath. 
Up  came  the  reserves  to  the  medley  infernal, 

Asking  where  to  go  in — through  the  clearing  or  pine? 
"  Oh,  anywhere!    Forward!    "Tis  all  the  same,  Colonel; 

You'll  find  lovely  fighting  along  the  whole  line!  " 

O,  evil  the  black  shroud  of  night  at  Chantilly, 

That  hid  him  from  sight  of  his  brave  men  and  tried! 
Foul,  foul  sped  the  bullet  that  clipped  the  white  lily, 

The  flower  of  our  knighthood,  the  whole  army's  pride! 
Yet  we  dream  that  he  still,  in  that  shadowy  region, 

Where  the  dead  form  their  ranks  at  the  wan  drummer's  sign, 
Rides  on,  as  of  old,  down  the  length  of  his  legion, 

And  the  word  still  is — "  Forward!  "  along  the  whole  line. 


ANECDOTES  ABOUT  TRAYERS,  STEWART,  CLEWS 
AND  JEROME. 

Mr.  Wm.  R.  Travers  was  a  unique  character.  He  vras  not  a 
literary  man.  He  did  not  write  anecdotes  but  he  perpetrated  jokes, 
and. he  perpetrated  so  many  that  he  kept  the  literary  men  of  New 
York  busy  for  years  recording  them.  Mr.  Travers  married  a 
daughter  of  the  Hon.  Reverdy  Johnson,  of  Baltimore,  and  ex-minister 
to  England,  after  which  he  moved  to  New  York  and  formed  a  part- 
nership with  Leonard  Jerome,  whose  daughter  married  Lord  Ran- 
dolph Churchill.  He  died  in  Bermuda,  March  19,  1887. 

Travers  was  a  stammerer.  He  never  spoke  three  consecutive 
words  without  stammering.  This  stammer  added  to  the  effective- 
ness of  his  wit,  as  Charles  Lamb's  stammer  added  to  his  wit.  His 
fame  got  to  be  so  great  as  a  stammerer  that  he  was  made  the  hero 
of  a  thousand  stammering  stories,  which  he  never  heard  of  until 
they  were  read  to  him  from  the  newspapers.  But  his  shoulders 
were  broad  enough  and  his  heart  was  big  enough  to  father  them  all. 

One  day  Mr.  Travers  went  into  a  bird-fancier's  in  Centre  street. 

"H-h-have  you  got  a-a-all  kinds  of   b-b-birds?"   he  asked. 

"  Yes,  sir,  all  kinds,"  said  the  bird-fancier,  politely. 

"  I  w-w-want  to  b-buy  a  p-p-parrot,"  hesitated  Mr.  T. 

"  Well,  here  is  a  beauty.     See  its  golden  plumage ! " 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  513 

"B-b-beautiful,"  stammered  Travers.     "C-c-can  he  t-t-talk?" 
"Talk!"  exclaimed  the  bird-fancier.      "If  he  can't  talk   better 
than  you  can  I'll  give  him  to  you!" 

"Mr.  Travers,"  says  Jay  Gould,  "once  went  down  to  a  dog-fan- 
cier's in  Water  street  to  buy  a  rat-terrier. 

"  'Is  she  a  g-g-good  ratter?'  asked  Travers  as  he  poked  a  little, 
shivering  pup  with  his  cane. 

"  'Yes,  sir;  splendid!  I'll  show  you  how  he'll  go  for  a  rat,' said 
the  dog-fancier — and  then  he  put  him  in  a  box  with  a  big  rat." 

"Ho\v  did  it  turn  out  ? "  I  asked  Mr.  Gould. 

"Why,  the  rat  made  one  dive  and  laid  out  the  frightened  terrier 
in  a  second,  but  Travers  turned  around,  and  sez  :ic — 'I  say,  Johnny, 
w-w-what'll  ye  t-t-take  for  the  r-r-rat  ? ' " 

Henry  Clews,  the  well-known  bald-headed  banker,  who  always 
prides  himself  on  being  a  self-made  man,  during  a  recent  talk  with 
Mr.  Travers  had  occasion  to  remark  that  he  was  the  architect  of  his 
own  destiny — that  he  was  a  self-made  man. 

"  W-w-what  d-did  you  s-ay,  Mr.  Clews  ? "  asked  Mr.  Travers. 

"  I  say  with  pride,  Mr.  Travers,  that  I  am  a  self-made  man — that 
I  made  myself — " 

"Hold,  H-henry,"  interrupted  Mr.  Travers,  as  he  dropped  his 
cigar,  *'w-while  you  were  m-m-making  yourself,  why  the  devil, 
d-did-didn't  you  p-put  some  more  hair  on  the  top  of  y-your  h- 
head?" 

One  day  Colonel  Fisk  was  showing  Mr.  Travers  over  the  "Ply- 
mouth Hock,"  the  famous  Long  Branch  boat.  After  showing  the 
rest  of  the  vessel,  he  pointed  to  two  large  portraits  of  himself  and 
Mr.  Gould,  hanging,  a  little  distance  apart,  at  the  head  of  the  stair- 
way. 

"  There,"  says  the  Colonel,  "what  do  you  think  of  them?" 

"  They're  good,  Colonel — you  hanging  on  one  side  and  Gould  on 
the  other;  f-i-r-s-t  rate.  But  Colonel,"  continued  the  wicked  Mr. 
Travers,  buried  in  thought,  "w-w-where's  our  Savior  ? " 

Mr.  Travers,  who  is  a  vestryman  in  Grace  church,  says  he 
knows  it  was  wicked,  but  he  couldn't  have  helped  it  if  he'd  been  on 
his  dying  bed. 

"One  day,"  says  Henry  Clews  in  his  "Thirty  Years  in  Wall 
Street,"   "after  Mr.  Travers  had  moved  to  New  York,  an  old  friend 
from  Baltimore  met  him  in  Wall  Street.    As  it  had  been  a  long  time 
34 


514  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

since  they  saw  each  other,  they  had  a  considerable  number  of  topics 
to  talk  over.  They  had  been  familiar  friends  in  the  Monumental 
City,  and  were  not,  therefore,  restrained  by  the  usual  social  formali- 
ties. 

"  'I  notice,  Travers,'  said  the  Baltimorean,  'that  you  stutter  a 
great  deal  more  than  when  you  were  in  Baltimore.' 

"  'W-h-y,  y-e-s,'  replied  Mr.  Travers,  darting  a  look  of  surprise  at 
his  friend;  'of  course  I  do.  This  is  a  d-d-damned  si^ht  b-b-bigger 
city.'" 

Travers  saw  Jay  Gould  one  afternoon  standing  in  front  of  the 
Stock  Exchange  buried  in  deep  thought. 

"  'Clews,'  he  said,  turning  to  the  banker,  'that's  a  queer  attitude 
for  G-G-Gould.' 

"  '  How  so?'  asked  Clews. 

"  'Why  he's  got  his  hands  in  his  p-p-pockets — his  own  p-p-pock- 
ets.' " 

Travers  belonged  to  McAlister's  "400,"  was  a  good  deal  of  an 
aristocrat  and  was  always  saying  spiteful  things  about  tradesmen 
like  Astor,  Lorillard  and  A.  T.  Stewart.  Stewart  was  elected  on 
one  occasion  to  preside  at  a  meeting  of  citizens  during  the  war. 
Travers  was  present  in  the  audience.  When  Mr.  Stewart  took  his 
gold  pencil  case  from  his  pocket  and  rapped  with  its  head  on  the 
table  for  the  .meeting  to  come  to  order,  Travers  called  out,  in  an 
audible  tone,  "C-cash  !"  which,  brought  clown  the  house,  and  no  one 
laughed  more  heartily  than  Mr.  Stewart,  although  it  was  a  severe 
thrust  at  himself. 

One  of  Travers'  best  Ion  mots  was  inspired  by  the  sight  of  the 
Siamese  twins.  After  carefully  examining  the  mysterious  ligature 
that  had  bound  them  together  from  birth,  he  looked  up  blankly  at 
them  and  said,  "  B-b-br-brothers,  I  presume." 

Mr.  Clews  says  that  the  last  time  he  saw  Travers,  the  genial 
broker  called  at  his  office.  Looking  at  the  tape,  Clews  remarked : 
"  The  market  is  pretty  stiff  to-day,  Travers." 

"  Y-y-yes,  but  it  is  the  st-st-stiffness  of  d-d-death." 

One  day,  many  years  ago,  Mr.  Travers  was  standing  on  the  curb 
of  New  street,  opposite  the  Exchange,  buying  some  stock  from  a 
gentleman  whose  aspect  was  unmistakably  of  the  Hebrew  stamp. 

"  Wh-wh-what  is  your  name  !  "  asked  Travers. 

"  Jacobs,"  responded  the  seller. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  515 

"  B-b-but  \vh-whatis  your  Christian  name  ? "  reiterated  Travers. 

The  Hebrew  was  nonplussed,  and  the  crowd  was  convulsed  with 
/aughter. 

The  first  time  Mr.  Travers  attempted  to  find  Montague  street,  in 
Brooklyn,  he  lost  his  way,  although  he  was  near  the  place.  Meet- 
ing a  man,  he  said  : 

"  I  desire  to  r-reach  M-Montague  st-street.  W-will  you  b-be 
kik-kind  enough  to  pup-point  the  way  ?  " 

"  You-you  are  go-going  the  wrong  w-way,"  was  the  stammer- 
ing answer.  "  That  is  M-Montague  st-street  there." 

"Are  y-you  mimick-mimicking  me,  making  fun  of  me-me?" 
asked  Mr.  Travers,  sharply. 

"Nun-no,  I  assure  you,  sir,"  the  other  replied.  "I-I  am  ba- 
badly  af-flict-flicted  with  an  imp-impediment  in  my  speech." 

"  "Why  do-don't  y-you  g-get  cured  ? "  asked  Travers,  solemnly. 
"G-go  to  Doctor  Janvrin,  and  y-you'll  get  c-cured.  D-don't  y-you 
see  how  Avell  I  talk  ?  H-he  cu-cured  m-m-me." 

An  obtuse  Englishman,  a  friend  of  Lord  Kandolph  Churchill, 
was  dining  with  Larry  Jerome  and  Mr.  Travers.  An  Englishman 
was  always  the  natural  prey  of  Jerome  and  Travers.  They 
pumped  him  full  of  the  most  astonishing  stories  of  Travers'  career 
as  warrior,  editor,  hunter,  fisherman,  yachtsman,  statesman,  guide, 
philosopher  and  friend. 

"  I  came  f-from  a  large  f-f-family,"  stammered  Mr.  Travers. 
"  There  were  t-t-ten  of  us  b-b-boys,  and  each  of  us  had  a  s-s- 
sister." 

"  Ah,  indeed ! "  remarked  the  obtuse  Englishman,  "  twenty  of 
you/' 

"No,"  said  Travers,  scornfully,  "  1-1-leven." 


K.  Q.  PHILANDEB  DOESTICKS. 

Below  is  the  first  article  Mortimer  M.  Thompson — "Doesticks" 
— wrote.  It  was  first  published  in  Rochester,  but  Chas.  A.  Dana, 
ever  a  great  lover  of  wit,  saw  its  merits,  and  one  day,  in  the  absence 
of  Horace  Greeley,  republished  it  in  the  Tribune.  The  article  was 
extensively  copied,  and  made  Doesticks  famous.  Mr.  Thompson  was 


516  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

a  brother  of  "  Fanny  Fern,"  whose  husband  was  James  Parton.  We 
give  the  article  as  recited  by  Doesticks  in  a  lecture  : 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : — I  have  been  to  Niagara — you  know  Niagara 
Falls — big  rocks,  water,  foam,  table  rock,  Indian  curiosities,  squaws, 
moccasins,  stuffed  snakes,  rapids,  wolves,-  Clifton  House,  suspension 
bridge,  place  where  the  water  runs  swift,  the  ladies  faint,  scream  and 
get  the  paint  washed  off  their  faces  ;  where  the  aristocratic  Indian  ladies 
sit  on  the  dirt  and  make  little  bags  ;  where  all  the  inhabitants  swindle 
strangers  ;  where  the  cars  go  in  a  hurry,  the  waiters  are  impudent  and  all 
the  small  boys  swear. 

"When  I  came  in  sight  of  the  suspension  bridge,  I  was  vividly 
impressed  with  the  idea  that  it  was  "some"  bridge  ;  in  fact  a  considerable 
curiosity,  and  a  "  considerable  "  bridge.  Took  a  glass  of  beer  and  walked 
up  to  the  Falls ;  another  glass  of  beer  and  walked  under  the  Falls ; 
wanted  another  glass  of  beer,  but  couldn't  get  it ;  walked  away  from  the 
Falls,  wet  through,  mad,  triumphant,  victorious ;  humbug  !  humbug  ! 
Sir,  all  humbug  !  except  the  dampness  of  every  thing,  which  is  a  moist 
certainty,  and  the  cupidity  of  everybody,  which  is  a  diabolical  fact,  and 
the  Indians  and  niggers  every  where,  which  is  a  satanic  truth. 

Another  glass  of  beer — 'twas  forthcoming  —  immediately  —  also 
another,  all  of  which  I  drank.  I  then  proceeded  to  drink  a  glass  of 
beer;  [laughter]  went  over  to  the  States,  where  I  procured  a  glass  of 
beer — went  up-stairs,  for  which  I  paid  a  sixpence;  over  to  Goat  Island, 
for  which  I  disbursed  twenty-five  cents;  hired  a  guide,  to  whom  I  paid 
half  a  dollar — sneezed  four  times,  at  nine  cents  a  sneeze — [laughter]  went 
up  on  the  tower  for  a  quarter  of  a  dollar,  and  looked  at  the  Falls — didn't 
feel  sublime  any;  tried  to,  but  couldn't;  took  some  beer,  and  tried  again, 
'but  failed — drank  a  glass  of  beer  and  began  to  feel  better — thought  the 
waters  were  sent  for  and  were  on  a  journey  to  the [pointing  down- 
ward amid  great  laughter]  thought  the  place  below  was  one  sea  of  beer 
— was  going  to  jump  down  and  get  some;  guide  held  me;  sent  him  over 
to  the  hotel  to  get  a  glass  of  beer,  while  I  tried  to  write  some  poetry — 
result  as  follows: 

Oh,  thou  (spray  in  one  eye)  awful,  (small  lobster  in  one  shoe,)  sub- 
lime (both  feet  wet)  master-piece  ol  (what  a  lie)  the  Almighty!  terrible 
and  majestic  art  thou  in  thy  tremendous  might — awful  (orful)  to  behold, 
(cramp  in  my  right  shoulder,)  gigantic,  huge  and  nice!  Oh,  thou  that 
tumblest  down  and  riseth  up  again  in  misty  majesty  to  heaven — thou 
glorious  parent  of  a  thousand  rainbows — what  a  huge,  grand,  awful, 
terrible,  tremendous,  infinite,  old  swindling  humbug  you  are;  what  are 
you  doing  there,  you  rapids,  you — you  know  you've  tumbled  over  there, 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  517 

and  can't  get  up  again  to  save  your  puny  existence;  you  make  a  great 
fuss,  don't  you? 

Man  came  back  with  the  beer,  drank  it  to  the  last  drop,  and  wished 
there  had  been  a  gallon  more — walked  out  on  a  rock  to  the  edge  of  the 
fall,  woman  on  the  shore  very  much  frightened — I  told  her  not  to  get 
excited  if  I  fell  over,  as  I  would  step  right  up  again — it  would  not  be 
much  of  a  fall  anyhow — got  a  glass  of  beer  of  a  man,  another  of  a  woman, 
and  another  of  two  small  boys  with  a  pail — fifteen  minutes  elapsed,  when 
I  purchased  some  more  of  an  Indian  woman  and  imbibed  it  through  a 
straw;  it  wasn't  good — had  to  get  a  glass  of  beer  to  take  the  taste  out  of  my 
mouth;  legs  began  to  tangle  up,  effects  of  the  spray  in  my  eyes,  got 
hungry  and  wanted  something  to  eat — went  into  an  eating-house,  called 
for  a  plate  of  beans,  when  the  plate  brought  the  waiter  in  his  hand.  I 
took  it,  hung  up  my  beef  and  beans  on  a  nail,  eat  my  hat,  [laughter] 
paid  the  dollar  a  nigger,  and  sided  out  on  the  step-walk,  bought  a  boy 
of  a  glass  of  dog  [laughter]  with  a  small  beer  and  a  neck  on  his  tail,  with 
a  collar  with  a  spot  on  the  end — felt  funny,  sick — got  some  soda-water 
in  tin  cup,  drank  the  cup  and  placed  the  soda  on  the  counter,  and  paid 
for  the  money  full  of  pocket — [laughter]  very  bad  headache;  rubbed  it 
against  the  lamp-post  and  then  stumped  along;  station-house  came  along 
and  said  if  I  did  not  go  straight  he'd  take  me  to  the  watchman — [laugh- 
ter] tried  to  oblige  the  station-house,  very  civil  station-house,  very — met 
a  baby  with  an  Irish  woman  and  a  wheelbarrow  in  it,  [loud  laughter] 
couldn't  get  out  of  the  way;  she  wouldn't  walk  on  the  sidewalk,  but 
insited  on  going  on  both  sides  of  the  street  at  once;  tried  to  walk  between 
her;  [laughter]  consequence  collision,  awful,  knocked  out  the  wheel- 
barrow's nose,  broke  the  Irish  woman  all  to  pieces,  baby  loose,  court- 
house handy,  took  me  to  the  constable,  [laughter]  jury  sat  on  me,  and 
the  jail  said  the  magistrate  must  take  me  to  the  constable;  objected;  the 
dungeon  put  me  into  the  darkest  constable  in  the  city;  got  out  and  here 
I  am  prepared  to  stick  to  my  original  opinion. 

Niagara  non  eslexcelsus  (egofui)  humbugest!  Indignus  admirationi! 
[Loud  laughter.  ] 


EUGENE  FIELD'S  LECTUKE. 

BIOGRAPHY. 

Eugene  Field  was  born  in  Boston,  Mass.,  in  1850.  He  received  a  classical  edu- 
cation, and  has  since  become  famous  as  a  journalist  and  wit.  He  published  "Cult- 
ure's Garland"  in  1887. 


518  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Mr.  Field  is  quite  famous  as  a  lecturer  in  the  vicinity  of  St.  Joseph, 
Mo.,  where  he  has  delighted  thousands  of  audiences.  His  last  great 
lecture  was  delivered  in  Kalamazoo,  Mich.,  before  the  Kalamazoo  Col- 
lege. Mr.  Field  says  he  thought  it  was  the  morgue  when  he  accepted  the 
engagement.  It  was  a  charming  medley  of  poetry  and  prose,  however, 
and  is  published  in  this  book  for  the  first  time. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

A  little  peach  in  the  orchard  grew, 
A  little  peach  of  emerald  hue: 
"Warmed  by  the  sun  and  wet  by  the  dew, 
It  grew. 

One  day,  walking  the  orchard  through, 
That  little  peach  dawned  OH  the  view 
Of  Johnny  Jones  and  his  sister  Sue — 

Those  two.     [Laughter.] 

Up  at  the  peach  a  club  they  threw: 
Down  from  the  limb  on  which  it  grew, 
Fell  the  little  peach  of  emerald  hue — 

Too  true.     [Laughter.] 

John  took  a  bite,  and  Sue  took  a  chew, 
And  then  the  trouble  began  to  brew, — 
Trouble  the  doctor  couldn't  subdue, — 

Paregoric  too.     [Laughter.] 

Under  the  turf  where  the  daisies  grew. 
They  planted  John  and  his  sister  Sue; 
And  their  little  souls  to  the  angels  flew — 

Boo-hoo!     [Sensation.] 

But  what  of  the  peach  of  emerald  hue, 
Warmed  by  the  sun,  and  wet  by  the  dew? 
Ah,  well!  its  mission  on  earth  is  through — 

Adieu!   [Applause.] 

At  the  panorama  of  the  Battle  of  Shiloh  in  Chicago  a  few  days  ago, 
a  small,  shriveled-up  man  made  himself  conspicuous  by  going  around 
the  place  sniveling  dolorously.  He  did  not  appear  to  be  more  than  five 
feet  high.  He  was  dressed  all  in  black,  and  his  attenuated  form  and 
gray  whiskers  gave  him  a  peculiarly  grotesque  appearance.  He  seemed 
to  be  greatly  interested  in  the  panorama;  and,  as  he  moved  from  one 
point  of  view  to  another,  he  groaned  and  wept  copiously.  A  tall,  raw- 
boned  man  approached  him;  he  wore  gray  clothes  and  a  military  slouch 
hat,  and  he  had  the  general  appearance  of  a  Missourian  away  from  home 
on  a  holiday. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  519 

"Reckon  you  were  at  Shiloh,  eh,  stranger?"  asked  the  tall,  raw- 
boned  man. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  small,  shriveled-up  man,  "and  I  shall  never 
forget  it;  it  was  the  toughest  battle  of  the  Avar." 

"  I  was  thar,"  said  the  tall,  raw-boned  man;  "  and  my  regiment  was 
drawn  up  right  over  yonder  where  you  see  that  clump  of  trees. " 

"You  were  a  rebel,  then?" 

"  I  was  a  Confederate,"  replied  the  tall,  raw-boned  man;  "and  I  did 
some  right  smart  fighting  among  that  clump  of  trees  that  day." 

"I  remember  it  well,"  said  the  small,  shriveled-up  man,  "for  I  was 
a  Federal  soldier;  and  the  toughest  scrimmage  in  all  that  battle  was 
fought  amongst  that  clump  of  trees." 

"  Prentiss  was  the  Yankee  general,"  remarked  the  tall,  raw-boned 
man;  "and  I'd  have  given  a  good  deal  to  have  seen-him  that  day.  But, 
dog-on  me!  the  little  cuss  kept  out  of  sight,  and  we  uns  came  to  the 
conclusion  he  was  hidin*  back  in  the  rear  somewhar." 

"  Our  boys  were  after  Marmaduke,"  said  the  small,  shriveled-up 
man;  "  for  he  was  the  rebel  general,  and  had  bothered  us  a  great  deal. 
But  we  could  get  no  glimpse  of  him;  he  was  too  sharp  to  come  to  the 
front,  and  it  was  lucky  for  him  too." 

"  Oh,  but  what  a  scrimmage  it  was!"  said  the  tall,  raw-boned  man. 

"How  the  sabres  clashed,  and  how  the  minies  whistled!"  cried  the 
small,  shriveled-up  man. 

The  panorama  brought  back  the  old  time  with  all  the  vividness  of 
a  yesterday's  occurrence.  The  two  men  were  filled  with  a  strange  yet 
beautiful  enthusiasm. 

"Stranger,"  cried  the  tall,  raw-boned  man,  "we  fought  each  other 
like  devils  that  day,  and  we  fought  to  kill.  But  the  war's  over  now,, 
and  we  ain't  soldiers  any  longer — gimme  your  hand!" 

"  With  pleasure,"  said  the  small,  shriveled-up  man;  and  the  two 
clasped  hands. 

"What  might  be  your  name?"  inquired  the  tall,  raw-boned  man. 

"I  am  Gen.  B.  M.  Prentiss,"  said  the  small,  shriveled-up  man. 

"Gosh,  you  say!"  exclaimed  the  tall,  raw-boned  man. 

"  Yes,"  re-affirmed  the  small,  shriveled-up  man;  "  and  who  are  you?" 

"I,"  replied  the  tall,  raw-boned  man,  "I  am  Gen.  John  S.  Marma- 
duke." [Loud  laughter.] 

I  wished  I  lived  away  down  East,  where  codfish  salt  the  sea, 
And  where  the  folks  have  pumpkin-pie  and  apple-sass  for  tea. 
Us  boys  who's  livin'  here  out  West,  don't  get  more'n  half  a  show  : 
We  don't  have  nothin'  else  to  do  but  jest  to  sort  o'  grow. 


520  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Oh  !  if  I  wuz  a  bird  I'd  fly  a  million  miles  away 

To  where  they  feed  their  boys  on  pork  and  beans  three  times  a  day ; 

To  where  the  place  they  call  the  Hub,  gives  out  its  shiny  spokes, 

And  where  the  folks — so  father  says — is  mostly  women-folks.    [Laughter.] 

The  members  of  the  Boston  Commercial  Club  are  charming  gentle- 
men. They  are  now  the  guests  of  the  Chicago  Commercial  Club,  and 
are  being  shown  every  attention  that  our  market  affords.  They  are  a  fine- 
looking  lot,  well-dressed  and  well-mannered,  with  just  enough  whiskers 
to  be  impressive  without  being  imposing. 

"  This  is  a  darned  likely  village,"  said  Seth  Adams,  of  the  Boston 
Commercial  Club,  after  being  in  Chicago  a  day  or  two.  "  Every  body 
is  rushin'  'round  an'  doin'  business  as  if  his  life  depended  on  it.  Should 
think  they'd  git  all  tuckered  out  'fore  night,  but  I'll  be  darned  if  there 
ain't  just  as  many  folks  on  the  street  after  night-fall  as  afore.  We're 
stoppin'  at  the  Palmer  tavern  ;  an'  my  chamber  is  up  so  all-fired  high, 
that  I  can  count  all  your  meetin'-house  steeples  from  the  winder. " 

Last  night  five  or  six  of  these  Boston  merchants  sat  around  the  office 
of  the  hotel,  and  discussed  matters  and  things.  Pretty  soon  they  got 
to  talking  about  beans  ;  this  was  the  subject  which  they  dwelt  on  with 
evident  pleasure. 

"  Waal,  sir,"  said  Ephraim  Taft,  a  wholesale  dealer  in  maple-sugar 
and  flavored  lozenges,  "you  kin  talk 'bout  your  new-fashioned  dishes  an* 
high-falutin'  vittles ;  but,  when  you  come  right  down  to  it,  there  ain't 
no  better  ea"tin'  than  a  dish  o'  baked  pork  'n'  beans." 

"That's  so,  b'  gosh!"  chorussed  the  others. 

" The  truth  o'  the  matter  is,"  continued  Mr.  Taft,  "that  beans  is 
good  for  everybody — 't  don't  make  no  difference  whether  he's  well  or 
sick.  Why,  I've  known  a  thousand  folks — waal,  mebbe  not  quite  a 
thousand;  but — waal,  now,  jest  to  show,  take  the  case  of  Bill  Hoi  brook: 
you  remember  Bill,. don't  ye?" 

" Bill  Holbrook?"  said  Mr.  Ezra  Eastman;  "why,  of  course  I  do! 
Used  to  live  down  to  Brimfield,  next  to  the  Moses  Howard  farm." 

"That's  the  man,"  resumed  Mr.  Taft.  "Waal,  Bill  fell  sick- 
kinder  moped  round,  tired  like,  for  a  week  or  two,  an'  then  tuck  to  his 
bed.  His  folks  sent  for  Dock  Smith — ol'  Dock  Smith  that  used  to  carry 
round  a  pair  o'  leather  saddlebags — gosh,  they  don't  have  no  sech  doc- 
tors nowadays!  Waal,  the  dock,  he  come,  an'  he  looked  at  Bill's  tongue, 
an'  felt  uv  his  pulse,  an'  said  that  Bill  had  typhus  fever.  01'  Dock 
Smith  was  a  very  careful  conserv'tive  man,  an'  he  never  said  nothin' 
unless  he  knowd  he  was  right. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.      521 

"  Bill  began  to  git  wuss,  an'  he  kep'  a-gittin'  wuss  every  day.  One 
mornin'  ol'  Dock  Smith  sez,  *  Look  a-here,  Bill,  I  guess  you're  a  goner; 
as  I  figger  it,  you  can't  hoi'  out  till  nightfall." 

"Bill's  mother  insisted  on  a  con-sul-tation  bein'  held;  so  ol'  Dock 
Smith  sent  over  for  young  Dock  Brainerd.  I  calc-late,  that,  next  to  ol' 
Dock  Smith,  young  Dock  Brainerd  was  the  smartest  doctor  that  ever 
lived. 

''Waal,  pretty  soon  along  come  Dock  Brainerd;  an'  he  an*  Dock 
Smith  went  all  over  Bill,  an'  looked  at  his  tongue,  an' felt  uv  his  pulse, 
an'  told  him  it  was  a  gone  case,  an'  that  he  had  got  to  die.  Then  they 
went  off  into  the  spare  chamber  to  hold  their  con-sul-tation. 

"  Waal,  Bill  he  lay  there  in  the  front  room  a-pantin'  an'  a-gaspin', 
an'  a  wond'rin*  whether  it  wuz  true.  As  he  wuz  thinkin',  up  comes  the 
girl  to  git  a  clean  tablecloth  out  of  the  clothes-press,  an'  she  left  the 
door  ajar  as  she  come  in.  Bill  he  gave  a  sniff,  an'  his  eyes  grew  more 
natural  like;  he  gathered  together  all  the  strength  he  had,  an'  he 
raised  himself  upon  one  elbow,  an'  sniffed  again. 

"  '  Sary,'  says  he,  '  wot's  that  a  cookin'? ' 

"  '  Beans,'  says  she,  '  beans  for  dinner.' 

"'Sary,'  says  the  dy in'  man,  ' I  must  hev  a  plate  uv  them  beans!' 
[Laughter.] 

"  '  Sakes  alive,  Mr.  Holbrook!'  says  she,  'if  you  wuz  to  eat  any  o' 
them  beans,  it'd  kill  ye! ' 

"  '  If  I've  got  to  die,'  says  he,  'I'm  goin'  to  die  happy;  fetch  me  a 
plate  uv  them  beans.' 

"  Waal,  Sary,  she  pikes  off  to  the  doctors. 

"'  Look  a-here,'  says  she,  'Mr.  Holbrook  smelt  the  beans  cookin', 
an'  he  says  he's  got  to  have  a  plate  uv  'em.  Now,  what  shall  I  do 
about  it?' 

"'Waal,  doctor,'  says  Dock  Smith,  'what  do  you  think  'bout  it?' 

" '  He's  got  to  die  anyhow,'  says  Dock  Brainerd;  '  an'  I  don't  sup- 
pose the  beans'll  make  any  diff'rence.'  [Laughter.] 

"  '  That's  the  way  I  figger  it,'  says  Dock  Smith;  '  in  all  my  practice 
I  never  knew  of  beans  hurtin'  any  body.' 

"  So  Sary  went  down  to  the  kitchen,  an'  brought  up  a  plateful  of 
hot  baked  beans.  Dock  Smith  raised  Bill  up  in  bed,  an'  Dock  Brain- 
erd put  a  piller  under  the  small  of  Bill's  back.  Then  Sary  sat  down  by 
the  bed,  an'  fed  them  beans  into  Bill  until  Bill  couldn't  hold  any  more. 

"  '  How  air  you  feelin'  now  ?'  asked  Dock  Smith. 

"  Bill  didn't  say  nuthin';  he  jest  smiled  sort  uv  peaceful  like,  an* 
closed  his  eyes. 


522  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  '  The  end  hez  come,'  said  Dock  Brainerd,  sof  ly  ;  '  Bill  is  dyinV 
"  Then  Bill  murmured  kind  o'  far  away  like  (as  if  he  was  dreamin'), 
'I  ain't  dyin' ;  I'm  dead  an'  in  heaven.'     [Loud  laughter.] 

"  Next  mornin'  Bill  got  out  uv  bed,  an'  done  a  big  day's  work  on  the 
farm,  an'  he  hain't  hed  a  sick  spell  since.  When  they  asked  him  about 
it  he  said  :  '  They  may  talk  about  beans  bein'  onhealthy,  but  I'd  a  bin 
ded  to-day,  by  ginger,  if  I  hadn't  eaten  'em."j  [Laughter.] 


GEOEGE  W.  CABLE'S  READINGS. 

Mr.  George  W.  Cable  has  usually  read  bis  sketches  to  audiences  of  late  years. 
One  of  bis  favorite  sketches,  full  of  dramatic  art,  is  "  Mary  Richling's  Ride,  "from 
"  Dr.  Sevier."  It  is  given  here  as  read  by  Mr.  Cable: 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — Mary  Eichling,  the  heroine  of  the  story  I 
read  to-night,  was  the  wife  of  John  Richling,  a  resident  of  New  Orleans. 
At  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War,  she  went  to  visit  her  parents  in 
Milwaukee.  About  the  time  of  the  bombardment  of  New  Orleans,  she 
received  news  of  the  dangerous  illness  of  her  husband,  and  she  decided 
at  once  to  reach  his  bedside,  if  possible.  Taking  with  her  her  baby 
daughter,  a  child  of  three  years,  she  proceeded  southward,  where,  after 
several  unsuccessful  attempts  to  secure  a  pass,  she  finally  determined  to 
break  through  the  lines. 

About  the  middle  of  the  night,  Mary  Richling  was  sitting  very  still 
and  upright  on  a  large,  dark  horse  that  stood  champing  his  Mexican  bit 
in  the  black  shadow  of  a  great  oak.  Alice  rested  before  her,  fast  asleep 
against  her  bosom.  Mary  held  by  the  bridle  another  horse,  whose  naked 
saddle-tree  was  empty.  A  few  steps  in  front  of  her  the  light  of  the  full 
moon  shone  almost  straight  down  upon  a  narrow  road  that  just  there 
emerged  from  the  shadow  of  woods  on  either  side,  and  divided  into 
a  main  right  fork  and  a  much  smaller  one  that  curved  around  to  Mary's 
left.  Off  in  the  direction  of  the  main  fork  the  sky  was  all  aglow  with 
camp-fires.  Only  just  here  on  the  left  there  was  a  cool  and  grateful 
darkness. 

She  lifted  her  head  alertly.  A  twig  crackled  under  a  tread,  and  the 
next  moment  a  man  came  out  of  the  bushes  at  the  left,  and  without  a 
word,  took  the  bridle  of  the  led  horse  from  her  fingers,  and  vaulted  into 
the  saddle.  The  hand  that  rested  a  moment  on  the  cantle  as  he  arose, 
grasped  a  "  navy  six."  He  was  dressed  in  dull  homespun,  but  he  was 
the  same  who  had  been  dressed  in  blue.  He  turned  his  horse  and  led 
the  wav  down  the  lesser  road. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  523 

"  If  we'd  of  gone  three  hundred  yards  further,"  he  whispered,  falling 
back  and  smiling  broadly,  "  we'd  'a'  run  into  the  pickets.  I  went  nigh 
enough  to  see  the  videttes  settin'  on  their  hosses  in  the  main  road.  This 
here  ain't  no  road;  it  just  goes  up  to  a  nigger  quarters.  I've  got  one  o* 
the  niggers  to  show  us  the  way." 

"Where  is  he?"  whispered  Mary;  but  before  her  companion  could 
answer,  a  tattered  form  moved  from  behind  a  bush  a  little  in  advance, 
and  started  ahead  in  the  path,  walking  and  beckoning.  Presently  they 
turned  into  a  clear,  open  forest,  and  followed  the  long,  rapid,  swinging 
stride  of  the  negro  for  nearly  an  hour.  Then  they  halted  on  the  bank 
of  a  deep,  narrow  stream.  The  negro  made  a  motion  for  them  to  keep 
well  to  the  right  when  they  should  enter  the  water.  The  white  man 
softly  lifted  Alice  to  his  arms,  directed  and  assisted  Mary  to  kneel  in  her 
saddle,  with  her  skirts  gathered  carefully  under  her,  and  so  they  went 
down  into  the  cold  stream,  the  negro  first,  with  arms  outstretched  above 
the  flood;  then  Mary,  and  then  the  white  man  —  or,  let  us  say  plainly, 
the  spy  —  with  the  unawakened  child  on  his  breast.  And  so  they  rose 
out  of  it  on  the  farther  side,  without  a  shoe  or  garment  wet,  save  the 
rags  of  their  dark  guide. 

Again  they  followed  him,  along  a  line  of  stake-and-rider  fence,  with 
the  woods  on  one  side  and  the  bright  moonlight  flooding  a  field  of  young 
cotton  on  the  other.  Now  they  heard  the  distant  baying  of  house-dogs, 
now  the  doleful  call  of  the  chuck-will's-widow,  and  once  Mary's  blood 
turned,  for  an  instant,  to  ice,  at  the  unearthly  shriek  of  the  hoot-owl 
just  above  her  head.  At  length  they  found  themselves  in  a  dim,  narrow 
road,  and  the  negro  stopped. 

"  Dess  keep  dish  yeh  road  fo'  'bout  half  mile,  an'  you  strak  'pon  de 
broad,  main  road.  Tek  de  right,  an'  you  go  whah  yo'  fancy  tek  you." 

"  Good-bye,"  whispered  Mary. 

"  Good-bye,  Miss,"  said  the  negro,  in  the  same  low  voice;  "  good-bye, 
boss;  don't  you  fo'git  you  promise  tek  me  thoo  to  de  Yankee,  when  you 
come  back.  Fse  'feered  you  gwine  fo'git  it,  boss." 

The  spy  said  he  would  not,  and  they  left  him.  The  half-mile  was 
soon  passed,  though  it  turned  out  to  be  a  mile  and  a  half,  and  at  length 
Mary's  companion  looked  back  as  they  rode  single  file,  with  Mary  in  the 
rear,  and  said,  softly: 

''There's  the  road," pointing  at  its  broad,  pale  line  with  his  six- 
shooter. 

As  they  entered  it  and  turned  to  the  right,  Mary,  with  Alice  again  in 
her  arms,  moved  somewhat  ahead  of  her  companion,  her  indifferent 
horsemanship  having  compelled  him  to  drop  back  to  avoid  a  prickly 


524  KIXG8  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

bush.  His  horse  was  just  quickening  his  pace  to  regain  the  lost  position, 
when  a  man  sprang  up  from  the  ground  on  the  farther  side  of  the  high- 
way, snatched  a  carbine  from  the  earth  and  cried:  "Halt!" 

The  dark,  recumbent  forms  of  six  or  eight  others  could  be  seen, 
enveloped  in  their  blankets,  lying  about  a  few  red  coals.  Mary  turned  a 
frightened  look  backward  and  met  the  eyes  of  her  companion. 

"Move  a  little  faster,"  said  he,  in  alow,  clear  voice.  As  she  promptly 
did  so  she  heard  him  answer  the  challenge,  as  his  horse  trotted  softly 
after  hers. 

"Don't  stop  us,  my  friend;  we're  taking  a  sick  child  to  the  doctor." 

"  Halt,  you  hound!"  the  cry  rang  out;  and  as  Mary  glanced  back, 
three  or  four  men  were  just  leaping  into  the  road.  But  she  saw  also  her 
companion,  his  face  suffused  with  an  earnestness  that  was  almost  an 
agony,  rise  in  his  stirrups  with  the  stoop  of  his  shoulders  all  gone,  and 
wildly  cry: 

"Go!" 

She  smote  the  horse  and  flew.     Alice  awoke  and  screamed. 

"Hush,  my  darling,"  said  the  mother,  laying  on  the  withe; 
"  mamma's  here.  Hush,  darling,  mamma's  here.  Don't  be  frightened 
darling  baby.  0,  God,  spare  my  child!"  and  away  she  sped. 

The  report  of  a  carbine  rang  out  and  went  rolling  away  in  a  thousand 
echoes  through  the  wood.  Two  others  followed  in  sharp  succession,  and 
there  went  close  by  Mary's  ear  the  waspish  whine  of  a  minie-ball.  At  the 
same  moment  she  recognized,  once — twice — thrice — just  at  her  back 
where  the  hoofs  of  her  companion's  horse  were  clattering — the  tart 
rejoinders  of  his  navy  six. 

"Go!"  he  cried  again.     "  Lay  low!  lay  low!  cover  the  child!" 

But  his  words  were  needless.  With  head  bowed  forward  and  form 
crouched  over  the  crying,  clinging  child,  with  slackened  rein  and  fluttering 
dress,  and  sun-bonnet  and  loosened  hair  blown  back  upon  her  shoulders, 
with  lips  compressed  and  silent  prayers,  Mary  was  riding  for  life  and 
liberty  and  her  husband's  bedside. 

"0,  mamma,  mamma,"  wailed  the  terrified  little  one. 

"Go  on!  Go  on!"  cried  the  voice  behind:  "they're  saddling  up! 
Go!  go!  We're  goin'  to  make  it!  We're  going  to  make  it!  Go-o-o!" 

And  they  made  it!     [Applause.] 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  525 


MAX  O'RELL. 

BIOGRAPHY. 

We  will  let  Max  Blouet  (Max  O'Rell)  tell  his  own  story: 

Dear  Eli: — My  grandfather  was  an  officer  in  the  French  army,  and  was  called 
Max  Blouet.  During  the  Napoleon  war,  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  English  and 
sent  to  England,  where  he  met  an  Irish  girl.  Miss  O'Rell,  whom  he  loved,  courted, 
married,  and  brought  back  to  France.  Such  is  the  origin  of  my  nom  de  plume.  I 
first  used  it  on  the  title-page  of  "John  Bull  and  His  Island." 

PAUL  BLOUET. 

MAX  O'RELL'S  LECTUEE  ON  THE  SCOTCHMAN. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — The  Scotchman  possesses  a  genius  for  bus- 
iness, as  the  following  dialogue  would  indicate.  One  of  his  favorite 
proverbs  is,  "He  will  soon  be  a  beggar  who  does  not  know  how  to  say 
no."  A  laird  of  Lanarkshire  was  one  day  accosted  by  one  of  his  neigh- 
bors as  follows: 

"  Laird,  I  need  £20  sterling.  If  you  will  be  kind  enough  to  accept 
my  note,  you  will  be  repaid  in  three  months." 

"No;  it  is  impossible,  Donald." 

"  But  why,  Laird  ?  You  have  often  rendered  a  like  service  to  your 
friends." 

"Impossible,  Donald,  I  repeat," 

"Then  you  mean  to  refuse  me  ?" 

"Listen,  Donald,  and  follow  my  reasoning:  As  soon  as  I  accepted 
your  note  you  would  go  and  draw  the  £20  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"When  the  maturity  of  the  note  arrived,  I  know  you,  and  that 
you  would  not  be  ready.  Then  we  should  quarrel.  Very  well!  but,  Don- 
ald, I  should  rather  that  we  should  quarrel  at  once,  while  the  £20  is  in 
my  pocket."  [Laughter.] 

Scotchmen  themselves  enjoy  telling  this  anecdote. 

Donald — Have  you  heard,  Duncan,  that  Sawney  McNab  has  been  condemned  to 
six  months  in  prison  for  having  stolen  a  cow  ? 

Duncan — What  a  fool  that  McNab  is  !  As  if  he  could  not  have  bought  the  cow — 
and  never  paid  for  it  !  [Laughter.] 

This  may,  perhaps,  explain  why  the  prisons  in  Scotland  are  compar- 
atively empty.  Donald  often  appears  before  the  justice  of  the  peace, 
but  rarely  in  the  police  courts.  Every  day  Donald  addresses  the  follow- 
ing prayer  to  God: 

O,  Lord!  grant  that  this  day  I  take  no  advantage  of  any  one,  and  that  no  one 
takes  advantage  of  me.  But,  if,  O,  Lord!  Thou  canst  accord  but  one  of  th^se  favors, 
let  no  one  take  advantage  of  me. 


526  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PUPILT. 

To  illustrate  Scotch,  thrift,  I  tell  a  little  anecdote  that  was  told  me 
in  Scotland: 

A  worthy  father,  feeling  death  at  hand,  sends  for  his  son  to  hear  his 
last  counsels.  " Sandy/'  he  says  to  him,  "listen  to  the  last  words  of 
your  old  father.  If  you  want  to  get  on  in  the  world,  be  honest.  Never 
forget  that,  in  all  business,  honesty  is  the  best  policy.  You  may  take 
my  word  for  it,  my  son — I  hae  tried  baith."  [Laughter.] 

The  Jews  never  got  a  footing  in  Scotland;  they  would  have  starved 
there.  They  came,  but  they  saw — and  gave  it  up.  You  may  find  one 
or  two  in  Glasgow,  but  they  are  in  partnership  with  Scotchmen,  and  do 
not  form  a  band  apart.  They  do  not  do  much  local  business;  they  are 
exporters  and  importers.  The  Aberdonians  tell  of  a  Jew  who  came  once 
.to  their  city  and  set  up  in  business;  but  it  was  not  long  before  he  packed 
up  his  traps  and  decamped  from  the  center  of  Scotch  cuteness. 

"Why  are  you  going ?"  they  asked  him.  "Is  it  because  there  are 
no  Jews  in  Aberdeen?" 

"  Oh,  no,"  he  replied;  "I  am  going  because  you  are  all  Jews  here." 
[Laughter.] 

The  Scotchman  believes  in  two  trinities;  the  Father,  Son  and  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  pounds,  shillings  and  pence.  Sandy  is  still  more  relig- 
ious, that  is  to  say,  still  more  church-going  than  the  Englishman.  He 
treats  his  Creator,  however,  as  a  next-door  neighbor.  If  he  comes  across 
a  big  word,  a  dictionary  word,  he  explains  it  to  the  Lord.  At  evening 
prayers  once,  I  heard  the  master  among  a  thousand  other  supplications, 
make  the  following: 

"0,  Lord,  give  us  receptivity;  that  is  to  say,  0,  Lord,  the  power  of 
receiving  impressions." 

The  entire  Scotch  character  is  there.  What  forethought!  What 
cleverness!  What  a  business-like  talent! 

Another  prayer  was:  "0,  Lord,  have  mercy  on  all  fools,  idiots  and 
the  members  of  the  town  council! " 

The  rigidness  of  the  Scotch  Sabbath  is  beyond  my  powers  of  descrip- 
tion; it  is  still  sterner  in  Scotland  than  in  England.  When  excursion 
trains  were  first  put  on  between  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow,  a  minister 
expostulated  with  a  lady  passenger  who  was  going  on  Sunday  to  visit  a 
sick  relative. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  said  he. 

' '  To  Glasgow,"  answered  she. 

"No,  you  are  going  to  hell! " 

"Oh!"  returned  the  undaunted  lass.  "Then,  I'm  all  right  for  I 
bought  a  return  ticket!"  [Laughter.] 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.     527 

BRET  IIAETE. 

NOVELIST,  LECTURER   AND   WIT. 

One  of  Bret  Harte's  funniest  lecture  stories  was  his  account  of 
the  first  jury  trial  in  California.  Up  to  August,  1850,  all  criminals  had 
been  tried  by  lynch  law,  and,  if  pronounced  guilty  by  the  boys,  they 
were  hung  to  a  tree.  But. times  began  to  mellow  down  a  little,  and 
certain  solid  citizens  began  to  sigh  for  good  old  Eastern  law.  They 
wanted  the  jury  trial  of  the  father,  and  as  provided  for  by  the  con- 
stitution. So  at  Big  Gulch,  in  1849,  when  a  man  had  been  accused 
of  stealing  horses,  they  decided  for  the  first  time  in  California  to 
give  the  culprit  a  fair  jury  trial — the  first  jury  trial,  I  say,  in  Cali- 
fornia. 

Twelve  good  men  were  chosen  'on  the  jury,  and  the  witnesses 
were  brought  before  them.  Some  swore  to  the  good  character  of  the 
accused  and  some  swore  that  he  was  a  horse-stealer  from  way  back. 
When  the  last  witness  got  through,  the  jury  retired  to  give  a  ver- 
dict. They  hadn't  been  in  the  jury-room  over  ten  mintes,  when  a 
crowd  of  outsiders  came  pounding  at  the  door. 

"  "What  do  you  fellers  want  ? "  asked  the  foreman. 

"  Want  to  know  if  you  jurymen  havn't  got  most  through  ? " 

"  Not  quite,"  said  the  foreman. 

"Well,  hurry  up — we  can't  wait  much  longer — we've  got  to  have 
this  room  to  lay  out  the  corpse  in  !  " 


WHY   BRET   HARTE   MURDERED   A   MAN. 

The  following  account  of  how  Bret  Harte  became  a  murderer, 
has  never  before  been  printed.  It  is  now  printed  from  Mr.  Harte:s 
manuscripts : 

*        *        *        *        *         *         ***** 

«  Dead !  Dead  as  Wilkes  Booth  !  Stone  cold  !  I  tell  you." 

"Fudge  and  nonsense,"  said  my  friend,  the  rector,  offering  me 
a  cheap  cigar.  "  I  don't  believe  it." 

"  You  must  believe  it —  I  swear  it !  "  I  said,  trying  to  light  my 
cigar. 

"  Tell  me  how  it  happened,  then.     It's  strange,"  he  replied. 

"  Well,  you  see,  I  had  sold  Jacob  Einstein  my  old  clothes  for  a 
great  many  years.  He  was  always  hard  and  close  at  his  bargains. 


528  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

I  once  tried,  I  remember,  to  get  him  to  buy  a  standing  crop,  as  it 
were  —  to  make  him  advance  something  on  a  contract  to  deliver  a 
suit  I  had  on  a  month  later  —  but  he  said,  '  Deshe  schtoc  brokers' 
ways  is  against  de  conscience.'  That  got  me  mad,  for  I  knew  it 
was  a  pretense. 

"  Well,  year  after  year  Jacob  kept  getting  richer  through  me. 
By  and  by  he  bought  a  big  house;  he  had  thirteen  children;  lie 
became  a  vestryman ;  he  joined  the  Union  League  (Jlub,  and  went 
into  politics  and  all  that  sort  of  thing ;  but  he  always  kept  the  old 
stand  with  the  gold  balls  just  the  same,  and  was  on  hand  whenever  I 
wanted  to  raise  a  little  money  on  a  coat. 

"  The  richer  he  grew,  the  closer  bargains  he  used  to  drive.  He 
got  it  down  so  fine  at  last  that  a  man  was  hardly  sure  of  making  a 
meal  off  a  coat.  He  kept  growing  richer,  and  I  kept  growing  poorer. 

"  But  the  thing  that  riled  me  was  the  airs  the  fellow  put  on.  One 
day  I  met  him  on  Fifth  avenue,  walking  with  the  governor.  He  was 
dressed  very  fine,  and  wore  a  large  diamond  ring  and  breastpin.  I 
looked  at  the  fellow,  and  he  cut  me  dead.  I  said  to  myself,  '  That 
man  is  doomed.'  I  went  to  my  room  and  thought  for  an  hour 
how  to  revenge  myself.  At  length  I  hit  on  a  plan." 

"  What  was  it  ?  "  inquired  the  rector. 

"  Well,  I  went  back  to  my  room,  took  off  my  vest,  buttoned  my 
coat  round  my  neck,  and  walked  to  my  friend  the  pawnbroker.  I 
found  Jacob  in  an  ill  hunior. 

"  '  Dere  is  too  many  holes  in  dish  blanket,'  he  was  saying  to  a  poor 
customer,  who  was  trying  to  negotiate  a  loan. 

"  '  Jacob,'  I  cried,  interrupting  him.  '  I'm  in  a  hurry.  I've 
brought  you  a  vest  made  for  the  Prince  of  Wales ;  it  has  never 
been  worn.' 

"Jacob  looked  curiously  at  the  vest  from  a  corner  of  his  eye. 

"  '  De  monish  is  very  search,'  he  said. 

"  '  You  are  lying,  Jacob,'  I  replied.  '  The  papers  all  say  it's  a 
drug.' 

"  '  It's  a  drug  for  de  well  folks,  not  for  de  poor  and  sick,  like 
me,'  said  Jacob. 

"  l  What'll  you  give  for  this  new  vest  ? '  said  I. 

"  l  Dat  vesht,'  said  he,  thrusting  the  nail  of  his  forefinger,  which 
he  had  let  grow  long  for  that  purpose,  through  one  of  its  seams,  'dat 


«^^»i^/^<^x^^^^^^i^^ 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  529 

vesht  ish  out  of  schtyle.     It  ish  old  ash  de  coat  of  Joseph.     I  don't 
want  de  ting  at  all.    What  will  you  take  for  it  as  a  favor?' 

"  '  Five  dollars,'  I  said. 

"  '  Shut  de  safe,  shut  de  safe,  Shadrach,'  cried  Jacob  to  his  son. 
( Deshe  men  have  come  to  rob  me.  Twenty-five  cents  ish  a  fortune 
to  give  for  such  a  vesht.' 

"  '  Five  dollars,  Jacob,'  I  said,  firmly. 

"  '  Thirty  cents,  for  de  shake  of  an  old  friend ;  not  one  penny 
more.' 

"  'Jacob  Einstein,  what  have  you  to  say  why  you  should  not  give 
five  dollars  for  that  vest?;  I  asked,  solemnly. 

"  He  said  nothing.     I  took  the  vest  slowly  from  him. 

"  '  It  is  a  very  rich  cloth,'  I  said,  taking  a  pinch  of  it  between 
my  thumb  and  finger,  and  snapping  it  like  an  expert.  'Hello  !  what 
is  this  ?  It  feels  thick  here,'  and  thrusting  my  hand  through  a  hole 
in  the  pocket  to  a  remote  corner  of  the  vest,  I  slowly  drew  forth 
and  unfolded  to  the  light  my  ten-dollar  bill. 

"  I  looked  at  Jacob ;  he  was  white  as  a  lily. 

"  'De  God  of  Abraham,'  he  cried,  and  fell  to  the  ground. 

"  We  tried  to  shake  him  into  consciousness.  It  was  no  use, 
Jacob  was  more  than  dead. 

"  I  tell  you  that  I  am  tired  of  starving.  I  am  going  to  be  even 
with  my  friends.  I  have  begun  with  the  pawnbroker." 


ANECDOTES  OF  GOULD,  FISK  AND  DREW. 

Mr.  Jay  Gould,  is  a  lay  figure  for  hundreds  of  the  best  jokes  on 
"  the  street."  The  great  financier  was  born  at  Stratton  Falls,  Dela- 
ware county,  N".  Y.,  in  1836.  His  father  was  John  B.  Gould,  who 
cultivated  a  small  farm  and  ran  a  grocery  store.  At  the  age  of 
twenty,  Gould  surveyed  Delaware  county,  mapped  it,  and  peddled 
the  books  himself.  After  this,  Mr.  Gould  bought  an  interest  in  a 
tannery,  then  married  Miss  Miller,  whose  father  was  connected  with 
railroads  and  who  gave  him  his  first  start  in  that  line.  Mr.  Gould's 
experience  in  his  partnership  with  Jim  Fisk,  who  was  killed  by 
Edwin  S.  Stokes,  is  well  known.  Fisk  was  a  big,  generous,  whole- 
souled  boy,  while  Gould  was  a  shrewd,  calculating  man.  Gould  is 
35 


530  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PUPILT. 

a  moral  and  temperate  man,  but  he  is  not  a  church  member.  His 
favorite  daughter  was  baptized  by  Dr.  Paxton,  whose  pathetic 
remarks  caused  Gould  to  shed  his  first  tears  in  public. 

One  day  last  summer  the  Kev.  Doctor  Cuyler,  of  Brooklyn,  was 
making  some  inquiries  as  to  the  religious  status  of  the  guests  in 
Saratoga.  Meeting  Mr.  Morrosini,  Gould's  old  Italian  partner,  he 
asked  him  about  Gould's  religious  status. 

"  Gould,  I  suppose  is  a  moral  man,  isn't  he,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"  Gould  whatee  ? "  asked  Morrosini,  with  his  Italian  accent. 

"  I  say,  I  suppose  Gould  is  a  moral  man — he  keeps  the  Sabbath, 
doesn't  he?" 

"Gould  keepee  the  Sab-bath!"  repeated  Morrosini.  "Gould 
keepee  the  Sab-bath!  "Why,  Gould  keepee  any  thing  he  get  his 
hands  on — you  try  heem! " 

"  Colonel  Fisk  was  full  of  fun,  and  Gould  was  dry  and  thought- 
ful, still  he  always  enjoys  a  dry  joke. 

Once  I  had  occasion  to  spend  an  hour  with  Fisk,  Daniel  Drew 
and  Gould  in  their  palatial  Erie  office,  and  a  record  of  that  hour  I 
then  wrote  out.  Fisk  was  being  shaved  as  I  entered,  and  his  face 
was  half  covered  with  foaming  lather.  Just  then  some  one  came 
in  and  told  him  that  the  gentlemen  in  the  office  had  made  up  a 
purse  of  $34  to  be  presented  to  little  Peter,  Fisk's  favorite  little 
office  boy. 

"All  right,"  said  the  Colonel,  smiling  and  wiping  the  lather  from 
his  face.  "  Call  in  Peter." 

In  a  moment  little  Peter  entered  with  a  shy  look  and  seemingly 
half  frightened. 

"  Well,  Peter,"  said  the  Colonel,  as  he  held  the  envelope  with 
the  money  in  one  hand  and  the  towel  in  the  other,  "  what  did  you 
mean,  sir,  by  absenting  yourself  from  the  Erie  office,  the  other  day, 
when  both  Mr.  Gould  and  I  were  away,  and  had  left  the  whole  mass 
of  business  on  your  shoulders  ?" 

Then  he  frowned  fearfully,  while  Peter  trembled  from  head  to 
foot. 

"  But,  my  boy,"  continued  Fisk,  "I  will  not  blame  you  ;  there 
may  be  extenuating  circumstances.  Evil  associates  may  have 
tempted  you  away.  Here,  Peter,  take  this  (handing  him  the  $34) 
and  henceforth  let  your  life  be  one  of  rectitude — quiet  rectitude, 
Peter.  Behold  me,  Peter,  and  remember  that  evil  communications 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN. 


531 


are  not  always  the  best  policy,  but  that  honesty  is  worth  two  in  the 
bush." 

As  Peter  went  back  to  his  place  beside  the  outside  door,  every 
body  laughed,  and  Fisk  sat  down  again  to  have  the  other  side  of 
his  face  shaved. 

Pretty  quick  in  came  a  little,  dried-up  old  gentleman,  with  keen 
gray  eyes  surmounted  by  an  overpowering  Panama  hat.  The  Erie 
Railway  office  was  then  the  old  gentleman's  almost  daily  rendez- 
vous. Here  he  would  sit  for  hours  at  a  time,  and  peer'out  from 
under  his  broad  brim  at  the  wonderful  movements  of  Colonel  Fisk. 
Cautious,  because  he  could  move  but  slowly,  this  venerable  gentle- 
man, who  has  made  Wall  Street  tremble,  hitched  up  to  the  stock 
indicator,  all  the  time  keeping  one  eye  on  the  quotations  and  the 
other  on  the  Colonel.  As  a  feeler,  he  ventured  to  ask: 

"How  is  Lake  Shore,  this  morning,  Colonel  ?" 

"  Peter,"  said  Fisk,  with  awful  gravity,  "  communicate  with  the 
Great  American  Speculator  and  show  him  how  they  are  dealing  on 
the  street! " 

The  old  man  chuckled,  Gould  hid  a  smile  while  smoothing  his 
jetty  whiskers,  and  little  Peter  took  hold  of  the  running  tape  with 
Daniel  Drew.  It  was  the  beginning  and  the  ending — youth  and 
experience — simplicity  and  shrewdness — Peter  and  Daniel! 

Little  Peter  was  about  ten  years  old,  and  small  at  that.  Fre- 
quently large  men  would  come  into  the  Erie  office  and  "  bore  "  the 
Colonel.  Then  he  would  say: 

"  Here,  Peter,  take  this  man  into  custody,  and  hold  him  under 
arrest  until  we  send  for  him! " 

"  You  seem  very  busy  to-day? "  I  remarked  to  the  Colonel  one 
morning. 

"  Yes,  Eli,"  said  Fisk,  smiling.  "  I'm  trying  to  find  out  from 
all  these  papers  where  Gould  gets  money  enough  to  pay  his  income 
tax.  He  never  has  any  money — fact,  sir!  He  even  wanted  to 
borrow  of  me  to  pay  his  income  tax  last  summer,  and  I  lent  him 
four  hundred  dollars,  and  that's  gone,  too !  This  income  business 
will  be  the  ruination  of  Gould."  Here  the  venerable  Daniel  Drew 
concealed  a  laugh,  and  Gould  turned  clear  around,  so  that  Fisk 
could  only  see  the  back  of  his  head,  while  his  eyes  twinkled  in  enjoy- 
ment of  the  Colonel's  fun. 


532  SnrOS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


When  Montaland,  the  great  opera  singer,  arrived  from  Paris, 
Fisk  had  just  said  farewell  to  "  Josie,"  and  so  he  took  extra  pains 
to  make  a  good  impression  on  his  beautiful  prima  donna. 

On  the  first  sunshiny  afternoon  after  Montaland  had  seen,  the 
Wonderful  Opera  House,  Fisk  took  her  out  to  Central  Park  behind 
his  magnificent  six-in-hand.  Passing  up  Fifth  avenue,  Montaland's 
eyes  rested  on  A.  T.  Stewart's  marble  house. 

"  Yat  ees  zat  ?  "  she  asked,  in  broken  French. 

"Why,  that  is  my  city  residence,"  said  Fisk,  with  an  air  of  pro- 
found composure. 

"C'est  magnifique  —  c'est  grande!  "  repeated  Montaland,  in  admir- 
ation. 

Soon  they  came  to  Central  Park. 

"  Tat  ees  zees  place  ?  "  asked  Montaland. 

"  O,  this  is  my  country  seat  ;  these  are  my  grounds  —  my  cattle 
and  buffalos,  and  those  sheep  over  there  compose  my  pet  sheep- 
fold,"  said  Fisk,  twirling  the  end  of  his  moustache  d  la  Napoleon. 

"C'est  ires  magnifique!"  exclaimed  Montaland  in  bewilderment. 
"Mr.  Feesk  is  one  grand  Americam  !  " 

By  and  by  they  rode  back  and  down  Broadway,  by  A.  T.  Stewart's 
mammoth  store. 

"  And  is  zees  your  grand  maison,  too  ?  "  asked  Montaland,  as 
she  pointed  up  to  the  iron  palace. 

"  ]STo,  Miss  Montaland  ;  to  be  frank  with  you.  that  building  does 
not  belong  to  me,"  said  Fisk,  as  he  settled  back  with  his  hand  in  his 
bosom  —  "  that  belongs  to  Mr.  Gould  !  " 

One  day  I  called  at  the  Erie  office.  Col.  Fisk's  old  chair  was 
vacant  and  his  desk  was  draped  in  mourning.  Fisk's  remains  lay 
cold  and  stiff,  just  as  he  fell  at  the  Grand  Central  Hotel,  pierced  by 
the  fatal  bullet  from  Stokes'  pistol.  II  is  old  associates  were  silent, 
or  gathered  in  groups  to  tell  over  reminiscences  of  the  dead  Colonel, 
•whose  memory  was  beloved  and  revered  by  his  companions. 

Mr.  Gould  never  tires  telling  about  Fisk's  good  qualities.  Even 
while  he  is  telling  the  quaintest  anecdotes  about  his  dead  partner, 
his  eyes  glisten  with  tears. 

"One  day,"  said  Mr.  Gould,  "Fisk  came  to  me  and  told  me  con- 
fidentially about  his  first  mistake  in  life." 

"What  was  it  ?"  I  asked. 


HE  CRIED  AND  FELL  TO  THE  GROUND. 


See  page  52£. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.      533 

"\Yeil,"  said  Gould,  as  he  laughed  and  wiped  his  eyes  alter- 
nately, "Fisk  said  that  when  he  was  an  innocent  little  boy,  living  on 
his  father's  farm  up  at  Brattleboro,  Vermont,  his  father  took  him  into 
the  stable  one  day,  where  a  row  of  cows  stood  in  their  uncleaned 

stalls. 

"Said  he,  'James,  the  stable  window  is  pretty  high  for  a  boy,  but 

do  you  think  you  could  take  this  shovel  and  clean  out  the  stable  ?' 

" '  I  don't  know,  Father,'  said  Fisk,  'I  never  have  done  it." 

"'Well,  my  boy, you  are  a  very  smart  boy,  and  if  you  will  do  it 
this  morning,  I'll  give  you  this  bright  silver  dollar,'  and  Fisk's  father 
patted  him  on  his  head,  while  he  held  the  silver  dollar  before  his 
eyes. 

"  'Good,'  says  Fisk,  Til  try,'  and  then  he  went  to  work.  He 
tugged  and  pulled  and  lifted  and  puffed,  and  finally  it  was  done, 
and  his  father  gave  him  the  bright  silver  dollar,  saying: 

"  'That's  right,  James,  you  did  it  splendidly,  and  now  I  find  you 
can  do  it  so  nicely,  I  shall  have  you  do  it  every  morning  all  winter.' " 

One  day  a  poor,  plain,  blunt  man  stumbled  into  Fisk's  room. 
Said  he: 

"Colonel,  I've  heard  you  are  a  generous  man,  and  I've  come  to 
ask  a  great  favor." 

"Well,  what  is  it,  my  good  man  ?"  asked  Fisk. 

"I  want  to  go  to  Lowell,  sir,  to  my  wife,  and  I  haven't  a  cent  of 
money  in  the  world,"  said  the  man,  in  a  firm,  manly  voice. 

"Where  have  you  been  ?"  asked  the  Colonel,  dropping  his  pen. 

"I  don't  want  to  tell  you,"  replied  the  man,  dropping  his  head. 

"Out  with  it,  my  man,  where  have  you  been  ?"  said  Fisk. 

"Well,  sir,  I've  been  to  Sing  Sing  State  Prison." 

"What  for  ?" 

"Grand  larceny,  sir.  I  was  put  in  for  five  years,  but  was  par- 
doned out  yesterday,  after  staying  four  years  and  one  ha]f.  I  am 
here,  hungry  and  without  money." 

"All  right,  my  man,"  said  Fisk,  kindly,  "you  shall  have  a  pass, 
and  here — here  is  five  dollars.  Go  and  get  a  meal  of  victuals,  and 
then  ride  down  to  the  boat  in  an  Erie  coach,  like  a  gentleman. 
Commence  life  again,  and  if  you  are  honest  and  want  a  lift,  come  to 
me." 

Perfectly  bewildered,  the  poor  convict  took  the  money,  and  six 
months  afterward  Fisk  got  a  letter  from  him.  He  was  doing  a 


534  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

thriving,  mercantile  business,  and  said  Fisk's  kindness  and  cheering 
words  gave  him  the  first  hope — his  first  strong  resolve  to  become  a 
man. 

Ten  minutes  after  the  poor  convict  left,  a  poor  young  negro 
preacher  called. 

"What  do  you  want?  Are  you  from  Sing  Sing,  too?"  asked 
Fisk. 

"  No,  sir ;  I'm  a  Baptist  preacher  from  Hoboken.  I  want  to  go 
to  the  Howard  Seminary  in  Washington,"  said  the  negro. 

"  All  right,  brother  Johnson,"  said  Fisk.  "  Here,  Comer,"  he 
said,  addressing  his  secretary,  "give  brother  Johnson  $20,  and 
charge  it  to  charity,"  and  the  Colonel  went  on  writing  without  lis- 
tening to  the  stream  of  thanks  from  the  delighted  negro. 

One  day  the  Colonel  was  walking  up  Twenty-third  street  to  dine 
with  Mr.  Gould,  when  a  poor  beggar  came  along.  The  beggar 
followed  after  them,  saying,  in  a  plaintive  tone,  "  Please  give  me  a 
dime,  gentlemen?" 

Mr.  Gould,  who  was  walking  by  Fisk,  took  out  a  roll  of  bills 
and  commenced  to  unroll  them,  thinking  to  find  a  half  or  a 
quarter. 

"  Here,  man ! "  said  Fisk,  seizing  the  whole  roll  and  throwing  it 
on  the  sidewalk,  "  take  the  pile." 

Then  looking  into  the  blank  face  of  Mr.  Gould,  he  said, 
"  Thunderation,  Gould,  you  never  count  charity,  do  you? " 

Somebody  in  Brattleboro  came  down  to  New  York  to  ask  Fisk 
for  a  donation  to  help  them  build  a  new  fence  around  the  graveyard 
where  he  is  now  buried. 

"  What  in  thunder  do  you  want  a  new  fence  for  ? "  exclaimed 
the  Colonel.  "  Why,  that  old  fence  will  keep  the  dead  people  in, 
and  live  people  will  keep  out  as  long  as  they  can,  any  way !  " 

What  a  miserable  reprobate  the  preachers  all  make  Fisk  out  to 
be !  And  they  are  right.  Why,  the  scoundrel  actually  stopped  his 
coupe  one  cold,  dreary  night  on  Seventh  avenue,  and  got  out, 
inquired  where  she  lived  and  gave  a  poor  old  beggar  woman  a  dollar. 
He  seemed  to  have  no  shame  about  him,  for  the  next  day  the 
debauched  wretch  sent  her  around  a  barrel  of  flour  and  a  load  of 
coal.  One  day  the  black-hearted  scoundrel  sent  ten  dollars  and  a 
bag  of  flour  around  to  a  widow  woman  with  three  starving  children  ; 
and,  not  content  with  this,  the  remorseless  wretch  told  the  police 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  535 

captain  to  look  after  all  the  poor  widows  and  orphans  in  his  ward 
and  send  them  to  him  when  they  deserved  charity.  What  a  shame- 
less performance  it  was  to  give  that  poor  negro  preacher  twenty 
dollars  and  send  him  to  Howard  University  !  And  how  the  black- 
hearted villain  practiced  his  meanness  on  the  poor,  penniless  old 
woman  who  wanted  to  go  to  Boston,  by  paying  her  passage  and 
actually  escorting  her  to  a  free  state-room,  while  the  old  woman's 
tears  of  gratitude  were  streaming  down  her  cheeks  !  Oh,  insatiate 
monster !  thus  to  give  money  to  penniless  negro  preachers  and  starv- 
ing women  and  children ! 


JOHN  J.  CEITTENDEN'S  ELOQUENCE. 

John  J.  Crittenden,  the  eloquent  Kentucky  lawyer,  was  once 
defending  a  murderer.  Every  one  knew  the  man  was  guilty,  but 
the  eloquence  of  Crittenden  saved  him. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Crittenden,  at  the  end  of  his  great  plea,  "'to 
err  is  human,  to  forgive  divine.'  When  God  conceived  the  thought 
of  man's  creation,  he  called  to  him  three  ministering  virtues,  who 
wait  constantly  upon  the  throne — Justice,  Truth  and  Mercy — and 
thus  addressed  them : 

" '  Shall  we  make  this  man  ? ' 

" '  O,  God,  make  him  not,'  said  Justice,  sternly,  '  for  he  will 
surely  trample  upon  Thy  laws.' 

"  *  And  Truth,  what  sayest  thou  ? ' 

" '  O,  God,  make  him  not,  for  none  but  God  is  perfect,  and  he 
will  surely  sin  against  Thee.' 

"  '  And  Mercy,  what  sayest  thou  ? ' 

"  Then  Mercy,  dropping  upon  her  knees,  and  looking  up  through 
her  tears,  exclaimed : 

"'O,  God,  make  him;  I  will  watch  over  him  with  my  care 
through  all  the  dark  paths  he  may  have  to  tread.' 

"  Then,  brothers,  God  made  man  and  said  to  him  :  'O,  man,  thou 
art  the  child  of  mercy;  go  and  deal  mercifully  with  all  thy 
brothers.' " 


536  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


KOSCOE  COCKLING  AND  CHARLES  O'CONNOR. 

Roscoe  Conkling  came  into  Charles  O'Connor's  office  one  day, 
when  he  was  a  young  lawyer,  in  quite  a  nervous  state. 

"  You  seem  to  be  very  much  exicted,  Mr.  Conkling,"  said  Mr. 
O'Connor,  as  Roscoe  walked  up  and  down  the  room. 

"  Yes,  I'm  provoked — I  am  provoked,"  said  Mr.  Conkling.  "  I 
never  Had  a  client  dissatisfied  about  my  fee  before." 

"Well,  what's  the  matter?"  asked  O'Connor. 

"  Why,  I  defended  Gibbons  for  arson,  you  know.  He  was  con- 
victed, but  I  did  hard  work  for  him.  I  took  him  to  the  supreme 
court  and  back  again,  to  the  supreme  court  again,  and  the  supreme 
court  confirmed  the  judgment  and  gave  him  ten  years.  I  charged 
him  $3,000,  and  now  Gibbons  is  grumbling  about  it — says  it's  too 
much.  Now,  Mr.  O'Connor,  I  ask  you,  was  that  too  much  ? " 

"  Well,"  said  O'Connor,  very  deliberately,  "  of  course,  you  did  a 
good  deal  of  work,  and  $3,000  is  not  such  a  very  big  fee,  but  to  be 
frank  with  you,  Mr.  Conkling,  my  deliberate  opinion  is  that  he 
might  have  been  convicted  for  less  money !  " 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS  AND  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW. 

Hon.  William  M.  Evarts  is  the  only  man,  except  Chauncey 
Depew,  who  can  be  witty  and  not  lose  his  dignity.  Mr.  Evarts  sat 
at  our  table  at  the  States  yesterday. 

Among  other  things  I  asked  the  great  lawyer  about  some  of  the 
witticisms  which  have  been  attributed  to  him. 

"  The  best  thing  the  newspapers  said  I  perpetrated,"  replied  Mr. 
Evarts,  "•  I  wasn't  guilty  of  at  all." 

"  What  was  that  ?"  I  asked. 

"  It  happened  when  I  was  Secretary  of  State.  Every  morning 
the  State  Department  elevator  came  up  full  of  applicants  for  foreign 
missions.  One  morning,  when  the  applicants  for  missions  was 
extremely  large,  Catlin,  the  Commercial  Advertiser  humorist, 
remarked :  'That  is  the  largest  collection  for  foreign  missions  you've 
had  yet.'  The  newspapers  attributed  the  saying  to  me,  but  Catlin 
was  the  real  criminal." 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  537 

"After  that  you  sent  poor  Catlin  out  of  the  country,  didn't  you  ? " 

"O,  no,  I  rewarded  him  by  making  him  consul  at  Glasgow — and 
afterwards  promoted  him." 

Speaking  of  Mr.  Evarts'  farm  up  at  Windsor,  I  told  him  I  under- 
stood that  he  raised  a  large  quantity  of  pigs  for  the  express  purpose 
of  sending  barrels  of  pork  to  his  friends. 

"  Yes,  I  am  guilty  of  that,"  said  Mr.  Evarts.  "  Fve  been  sending 
Bancroft  pork  for  years,  and  if  his  '  History  of  America'  is  success- 
ful it  will  be  largely  due  to  my  pen." 

A  few  years  ago  Mr.  Evarts  sent  his  usual  barrel  of  pickled  pork 
to  Bancroft  with  this  letter : 

DEAR  BANCROFT: — I  am  very  glad  to  send  you  two  products  of  my  pen  to-day — 
a  barrel  of  pickled  pork  and  my  Eulogy  on  Chief  Justice  Chase.  Yours,  EVARTS. 

Chauncey  Depew  says :  "  Evarts  once  sent  a  donkey  up  to  his 
Windsor  farm  in  Yermont.  About  a  week  afterwards  Mr.  Evarts 
received  the  following  letter  from  his  little  grandchild : 

DEAR  GRANDPA — The  little  donkey  is  very  gentle,  but  he  makes  a  big  noise 
nights.  He  is  very  lonesome.  I  guess  he  misses  you.  I  hope  you  will  come  up 
soon  and  then  he  won't  be  so  lonesome.  MINNIE. 

Evarts  says  when  the  Baptists  came  to  Rhode  Island  they  praised 
God  and  fell  on  their  knees,  then  they  fell  on  the  aborigi — nese. 

When  I  asked  the  Ex-Secretary  about  the  early  settlement  of 
Rhode  Island,  he  said : 

"  Yes,  the  Dutch  settled  Rhode  Island  and  then  the  Yankees 
settled  the  Dutch." 


JEFFERSON  ON  FRANKLIN. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  when  minister  to  France,  being  presented  at 
court,  some  eminent  functionary  remarked: 

"  You  replace  Dr.  Franklin,  sir." 

"I  succeed  Dr.  Franklin,"  was  Mr.  Jefferson's  prompt  reply; 
"  no  man  can  replace  him." 


LINCOLN'S  ILLUSTRATION. 

When  the  telegram  from  Cumberland  Gap  informed  Mr.  Lincoln 
that  "  firing  was  heard  in  the  direction  of  Knoxville/'  he  remarked 
that  he  was  glad  of  it. 


538  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

Governor  Sprague  had  the  perils  of  Burnside's  position  upper- 
most in  his  mind,  who  was  present  and  who  could  not  see  why  Mr. 
Lincoln  should  be  "glad  of  it,"  and  so  expressed  himself. 

"Why,  you,  see,  Governor,"  responded  the  President,  "it 
reminds  me  of  Mistress  Sallie  "Ward,  a  neighbor  of  mine,  who  had 
a  very  large  family.  Occasionally  one  of  her  numerous  progeny 
would  be  heard  crying  in  some  out-of-the-way  place,  upon  which 
Mistress  Sallie  would  exclaim,  '  There's  one  of  my  children  that 
isn't  dead  yet.' 


5  55 


EDWARD  EVERETT  ON  JUDGE  STORY. 

Everett  was  entertained  at  a  public  dinner,  before  leaving  Bos- 
ton for  England  to  assume  the  duties  of  a  minister  at  the  English 
court.  The  celebrated  Judge  Story,  who  was  present  on  the  occa- 
sion, gave  as  a  sentiment. 

"  Genius  is  sure  to  be  recognized  where  Ever-ett  goes." 
Everett    gratefully  responded   with  another  sentiment.  "Law, 
Equity  and  Jurisprudence;  no  efforts  can  raise  them   above  one 
Story." 


GENERAL  SHERMAN  ON  "PAP"  THOMAS. 

General  Sherman  is  fond  of  telling  thrilling  incidents  of  the 
great  war.  I  was  talking  with  the  General  one  day  about  General 
Thomas,  when  he  put  his  hand  to  his  head  as  if  in  deep  thought 
and  exclaimed : 

"Here's  something  about  Thomas:  You  see  General  Thomas 
was  junior  to  me  in  rank  but  senior  in  service.  '  Pap,'  as  the  boys 
called  him,  was  a  severe  disciplinarian.  Well,  in  the  Atlanta  cam- 
paign he  had  received  many  complaints  about  the  pilfering  and 
plundering  committed  by  one  of  his  brigades,  and,  being  resolved 
to  put  this  offense  down,  he  issued  some  strict  orders,  menacing  with 
death  any  who  should  transgress.  The  brigade  in  question  wore 
for  its  badge  an  acorn,  in  silver  or  gold,  and  the  men  were  inordi- 
nately proud  of  this  distinctive  sign.  Several  cases  of  disobedience 
had  been  reported  to  the  General,  but  the  evidence  was  never  strong 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.      539 

enough  for  decisive  action,  until  one  day,  riding  with  an  orderly 
down  a  by-lane  outside  the  posts,  Thomas  came  full  upon  an  Irish- 
man who,  having  laid  aside  his  rifle,  with  which  he  had  killed  a 
hog,  was  busily  engaged  in  skinning  the  animal  with  his  sword- 
bayonet,  so  as  to  make  easy  work  with  the  bristles,  etc.,  before 
cooking  pork  chops.  'Ah,'  cried  the  General,  'you  rascal,  at  last 
I  have  caught  you  in  the  act.  There  is  no  mistake  about  it  this 
time,  and  I  will  make  an  example  of  you,  sir ! ' 

"'Bedad!  General,  honey!'  said  the  Irishman,  straightening 
himself  up  and  coming  to  the  salute,  'it's  not  shootin'  me  that  you 
ought  to  be  at,  but  rewardin'  me.' 

"'"What  do  you  mean,  sir?'  exclaimed  General  Thomas. 

" '  Why,  your  Honor ! '  the  soldier  replied,  '  this  bad  baste  here 
had  just  been  disicratin'  the  rigimental  badge;  and  so  I  was  forced 
to  dispatch  him.  It's  'atin'  the  acorns  that  I  found  him  at! '  Even 
General  Thomas  was  obliged  to  laugh  at  this,  and  the  soldier  saved 
his  life  by  his  wit." 


GARFIELD'S  WIT. 

At  one  of  Proctor's  lectures,  a  lady  wished  for  a  seat,  when  Gen- 
eral Garfield  brought  one  and  seated  her. 

"  Oh,  you're  a  jewel,"  said  she. 

"  Oh,  no,"  replied  Garfield,  "  I'm  a  jeweler ;  I've  just  set  the 
jewel." 


McCOSH'S  IMPKESSIOK 

"  Ah,  I  have  an  impression !  "  exclaimed  Dr.  McCosh,  the  pres- 
ident of  Princeton  College,  to  the  mental  philosophy  class.  "  Now, 
young  gentlemen,"  continued  the  doctor,  as  he  touched  his  head 
with  his  forefinger,  "can  you  tell  me  what  an  impression  is ?" 

No  answer. 

"  What ;  no  one  knows  ?  No  one  can  tell  me  what  an  impression 
is  ?  exclaimed  the  doctor,  looking  up  and  down  the  class. 

"  I  know,"  said  Mr.  Arthur.  "  An  impression  is  a  dent  in  a  soft 
place." 


540  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Young  gentleman,"  said  the  doctor,  removing  his  hand  from 
his  forehead  and  growing  red  in  the  face,  "  you  are  excused  for  the 
day." 

WEBSTER  ON  SELF-EYIDENCE. 

"  "What  do  you  mean  by  '  self-evident  3 ' "  asked  President  "Web- 
ster  of  Union  College  of  his  mental  philosophy  class. 

"  I  don't  know,  sir,"  replied  the  student. 

"  "Well,  I  will  try  and  illustrate,"  said  the  president.  "  Speaking 
about  mythology — suppose  I  should  ask  you  if  there  ever  was  such  a 
person  as  the  f  fool  killer  ? ' ' 

"  I  should  say  I  don't  know— I  never  met  him." 

"  That  is  '  self-evident,'  "  said  the  Doctor. 


DAYID  B.  HILL  ON  GROYER  CLEYELAND. 

"  Uncle  Billy,  a  venerable  servant  on  President  Cleveland's 
private  car,"  said  Governor  Hill,  "  was  very  proud  of  having  once 
gone  fishing  with  President  Cleveland." 

"  ;  How  did  you  come  out,  Billy  ? "  I  asked. 

" '  Well,  when  we  war  up  in  Wes  Firginny  las'  spring,  the  Presi- 
dent he  says  Dan  Lament  and  I.  us  free,  we's  "  go  in  Cahoot,"  Well 
we  gets  eighteen  fish.' 

" '  How  did  the  President  divide  ? ' 

"  '  Well  Marse  President,  he  takes  eighteen  fish  and  Lament  he 
takes  de  rest.' 

"  '  And  what  did  you  get,  Uncle  Billy  ? ' 

"  '  Well,  I'do  know,'  scratching  his  head ;  then  brightening  up  he 
said :  '  I  reckons  I  got  the  "  Cahoot." ' " 


PRESIDENT  HARRISON  ON  GENERAL  SCOTT. 

President  Benj.  Harrison  belonged  to  the  Yolunteers  in  the  late 
war,  while  General  Scott  was  a  West  Pointer  of  the  deepest  dye. 
When  Scott  got  old  and  foolish,  all  the  Yolunteer  officers  used  to 
make  fun  of  him. 

"  One  day,"  said  General  Harrison,  "  General  Scott  went  into  a 
hospital  in  Washington  to  express  sympathy  with  the  patients. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.      541 

'  "  '  What  is  the  matter  with  you,  my  man  ? '  asked  the  General  as 
he  gazed  at  a  poor  man  with  a  sore  leg. 

"  '  Oh,  I've  got  gangrene,  General.' 

"  <  Gangrene  !  why,  that's  a  very  dangerous  disease,  my  man — 
v-e-r-y  d-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s,'  said  General  Scott.  '  I  never  knew  a  man 
to  have  gangrene  and  recover.  It  always  kills  the  patient  or  leaves 
him  demented.  I've  had  it  myself.' " 


FITZ  HUGH  LEE  AND  GENERAL  KILPATRICK. 

On  the  evening  before  the  last  unsuccessful  attempt  to  storm 
the  defenses  of  Fredericksburg,  some  of  the  skirmishers  were 
endeavoring,  under  cover  of  darkness,  to  draw  closer  to  the  rebel 
works.  One  of  Fitz  Hugh  Lee's  men  discovered  Kilpatrick's  cav- 
alry and  shouted : 

"Hello,  Yanks!     Howdy?" 

"  We're  all  right.     Were  bound  to  come  and  see  you !  " 

"Come  on!"  shouted  Fitz  Hugh's  men.  "We've  got  room, 
enough  to  bury  you  !  " 


SEWARD  JOKED  BY  DOUGLAS. 

When  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  was  being  debated,  Senator 
Seward  tapped  Douglas  on  the  shoulder  and  whispered  in  his  ear 
that  he  had  some  "  Bourbon  "  in  the  Senator's  room  which  was 
twenty  years  old,  and  upon  which  he  desired  to  get  Douglas'  judg- 
ment. The  orator  declined,  saying  that  he  meant  to  speak  in  a  few 
minutes,  and  wished  his  brain  unclouded  by  the  fumes  of  liquor. 
At  the  conclusion  of  his  speech,  Douglas  sank  down,  in  his  chair, 
exhausted,  hardly  conscious  of  the  congratulations  of  those  who 
flocked  around  him.  At  this  juncture,  Seward  seized  the  orator's 
arm,  and  bore  him  off  to  the  senatorial  sanctum. 

"  Here's  the  Bourbon,  Douglas,"  said  Seward,  "  try  some — its 
sixty  years  old," 

"  Seward,"  remarked  Douglas,  "  I  have  made  to-day  the  longest 
speech  ever  delivered;  history  has  no  parallel  for  it." 

"How  is  that?"  rejoined  Seward,  "you  spoke  for  two  hours 
only." 


542  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Why,"  said  Douglas,  "  a  moment  before  I  rose  to  speak  you 
invited  me  to  partake  of  some  Bourbon  twenty  years  old,  and  now 
you  offer  me  some  of  the  same  liquor,  with  the  assertion  that  it  is 
sixty  years  old ! — a  forty  years'  speech  was  never  delivered  before." 


YOORHEES,  TANNER  AND  SECRETARY  NOBLE. 

The  day  that  Corporal  Tanner  arrived  at  the  Interior  Depart- 
ment to  receive  his  commission  as  commissioner  of  pensions,  Henry 
Watterson  and  Daniel  Voorhees  happened  to  be  present.  Tanner, 
every  one  knows,  was  as ,  brave  as  a  lion  and  lost  both  feet  in  the 
war.  He  was  a  private  without  much  education  and  a  very  ordi- 
nary, loose-jointed  but  picturesque-looking  man,  and  he  has  grown 
more  picturesque  with  age. 

As  the  Corporal  hobbled  into  Secretary  Noble's  room  in  the 
Interior  Department,  he  saluted  the  Secretary  and  said : 

"  Hello,  Gen'ral — come  clown  to  qualify — to  be  sworn  in ! " 

"  Ah,  Corporal  Tanner  ? "  said  the  Chesterfieldian  Noble. 

"  Yes,  Tanner — come  to  qualify." 

"  Let  me  introduce  you  to  Senator  Yoorhees  and  Editor  Watter- 
son, Corporal,"  said  the  Secretary,  suiting  the  action  to  the  word. 

"  Glad  to  see  you,  Senator,"  said  Tanner.  "  Glad  to  see  an  hon- 
'est  enemy.  While  Jeff  Davis  was  shooting  off  my  feet,  you  and 
Watterson  and  Thurman  were  shooting  us  in  the  rear.  Glad  to  see 
you!" 

"  And  you've  come  to  Washington  to  get  your  commission  and 
be  qualified  as  commissioner  of  pensions  ? "  remarked  the  Wabash 
Senator. 

"  You're  right  I  have,"  said  the  Corporal,  his  eyes  twinkling 
with  excitement. 

"  Well,  I'll  be  dog-on !  "  was  the  only  reply,  as  Yoorhees  took 
a  quid  of  tobacco  and  looked  out  of  the  window. 

"  Yes,  going  to  be  qualified  to-day,"  continued  Tanner. 

"  Well,  my  friend,"  said  Yoorhees,  surveying  the  Corporal  from 
head  to  foot,  this  government  is  not  inspired — it  is  not  Providence. 
Noble,  its  representative,  can  swear  you  in,  but  the  Department  of 
Education  and  all  hell  couldn't  qualify  you !  " 


"WHAT  DO  YOU  MEAN.  SIR?" 


See  page  543. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  543 

M.  QUAD  (CHAS.  B.  LEWIS). 

He  smiled  blandly  as  he  halted  for  a  moment  in  front  of  the  City 
Hall.  He  looked  like  a  man  who  could  palm  off  almost  anything 
on  the  public  at  100  per  cent,  profit  and  yet  leave  each  customer  in 
a  grateful  mood.  He  had  a  tin  trunk  in  his  hand,  and  as  he  sailed 
down  LaFayette  avenue,  the  boys  wondered  whether  the  trunk  con- 
tained bug  juice  or  horse  liniment.  The  stranger  stopped  in  front 
of  a  handsome  residence,  his  smile  deepened,  and  he  mounted  the 
steps  and  pulled  the  bell. 

"  Is  the  lady  at  home?  "  he  inquired  of  the  girl  who  answered 
the  bell. 

The  girl  thought  he  was  the  census  taker,  and  she  seated  him  in 
the  parlor  and  called  the  lady  of  the  house.  When  the  lady 
entered,  the  stranger  rose,  bowed  and  said  : 

"Madam,  I  have  just  arrived  in  this  town  after  a  tour  extending 
clear  down  to  Florida,  and  wherever  I  went  I  was  received  with  glad 
welcome." 

"Did  you  wish  to  see  my  husband?"  she  asked,  as  he  opened 
the  tin  trunk. 

"  No,  madam,  I  deal  directly  with  the  lady  of  the  house  in  all 
cases.  A  woman  will  appreciate  the  virtues  of  my  exterminator 
.and  purchase  a  bottle,  where  a  man  will  order  me  off  the  steps  with- 
out glancing  at  it." 

"  Your — your  what  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Madam,"  he  replied,  as  he  placed  a  four-ounce  phial  of  dark 
liquid  on  the  palm  of  his  left  hand  ;  "  madam,  I  desire  to  call  your 
attention  to  my  Sunset  Bedbug  Exterminator.  It  has  been  tried  at 
home  and  abroad,  and  in  no  case  has  it  failed  to — " 

"  What  do  you  mean,  sir  ? "  she  demanded,  getting  very  red  in  the 
face.  "Leave  this  house,  instantly." 

"  Madam,  I  do  not  wish  you  to  infer  from  my — " 

"  I  want  you  to  leave  this  house  ! "  she  shrieked. 

"  Madam,  allow  me  to  explain  my — " 

"I  will  call  the  police  ! "  she  screamed,  making  for  the  door,  and 
he  hastily  locked  his  trunk  and  hurried  out. 

Going  down  the  street  about  two  blocks  he  saw  the  lady  of  the 
house  at  the  parlor  window,  and  instead  of  climbing  the  steps  he 
stood  under  the  window  and  politely  said  : 


544  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PUPILT. 

l*  Madam,  I  don't  wish  to  even  hint  that  any  of  the  bedsteads  in 
your  house  are  inhabited  by  bedbugs,  but — r 

"  What !    What's  that? "  she  exclaimed. 

"  I  said  that  I  hadn't  the  remotest  idea  that  any  of  the  bedsteads 
in  your  house  were  infested  by  bedbugs,"  he  replied. 

"  Take  yourself  out  of  this  yard !  "  she  shouted,  snatching  a  tidy 
off  the  back  of  a  chair  and  brandishing  it  at  him. 

"  Beg  pardon,  madam,  but  I  should  like  to  call  your — " 

"  Get  out ! "  she  screamed  ;  "  get  out,  or  I'll  call  the  gardener ! " 

"I  will  get  out,  madam,  but  I  wish  you  understood — " 

"  J-a-w-n !  J-a-w-n ! "  she  shouted  out  of  a  side  window,  but  the 
exterminator  agent  was  out  of  the  yard  before  John  could  get 
around  the  house. 

He  seemed  dispouraged  as  he  walked  down  the  street,  but  he  had 
traveled  less  than  a  block  when  he  saw  a  stout  woman  sitting  on 
the  front  steps  of  a  fine  residence,  fanning  herself. 

"  Stout  women  are  always  good-natured,"  he  soliloquized  as  be 
opened  the  gate. 

"  Haven't  got  any  thing  for  the  grasshopper  sufferers ! "  she 
called  out  as  he  entered. 

There  was  an  angelic  smile  on  his  face  as  he  approached  the 
steps,  set  his  trunk  clown,  and  said: 

"My  mission,  madam,  is  even  nobler  than  acting  as  agent  for  a 
distressed  community.  The  grasshopper  sufferers  do  not  comprise 
a  one-hundredth  part  of  the  world's  population,  while  my  mission 
is  to  relieve  the  whole  world." 

"  I  don't  want  any  peppermint  essence,"  she  continued,  as  he 
started  to  unlock  the  trunk. 

"  Great  heavens,  madam,  do  I  resemble  a  peddler  of  cheap 
essences?  "  he  exclaimed.  "  I  am  not  one.  I  am  here  in  Detroit  to 
enhance  the  comforts  of  the  night — to  produce  pleasant  dreams. 
Let  me  call  your  attention  to  my  Sunset  Bedbug  Exterminator,  a 
liquid  warranted  to — ' 

"  Bed  what  ?  "  she  screamed,  ceasing  to  fan  her  fat  cheeks. 

"  My  Sunset  Bedbug  Exterminator.  It  is  to-day  in  use  in  the 
humble  negro  cabins  on  the  banks  of  the  Arkansaw.  as  well  as  in 
the  royal  palace  of  her  Majesty  Q — " 

"  You  r-r-rascal !  you  villyun  ! "  she  wheezed  ;  "  how  dare  you 
insult  me,  m — " 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.      545 

"  No  insult,  madam,  it  is  a  pure  matter  of — " 

"  Leave !  Git  o-w-t !  "  she  screamed,  clutching  at  his  hair,  and  he 
had  to  go  out  in  such  a  hurry  that  he  couldn't  lock  the  trunk  until 
he  reached  the  walk. 

He  traveled  several  blocks  and  turned  several  corners  before  he 
halted  again,  and  his  smile  faded  away  to  a  melancholy  grin.  He 
saw  two  or  three  ragged  children  at  a  gate,  noticed  that  the  house 
was  old,  and  he  braced  up  and  entered. 

"I  vhants  no  zoap,"  said  the  woman  of  the  house,  as  she  stood  in 
the  door. 

"Soap,  madam,  soap?  I  have  no  soap.  I  noticed  that  you 
lived  in  an  old  house,  and  as  old  houses  are  pretty  apt  to  be 
infested — " 

"  I  vhants  no  bins  or  needles  to-day ! "  she  shouted. 

"  Madam,  I  am  not  a  peddler  of  Yankee  notions,"  he  replied.  "  I 
am  selling  a  liquid,  prepared  only  by  myself,  which  is  warranted 
to—" 

"  I  vhants  no  baper  gollers ! "  she  exclaimed,  motioning  for  him 
to  leave. 

"  Paper  collars  !  I  have  often  been  mistaken  for  Shakespeare, 
madam,  but  never  before  for  a  paper  collar  peddler.  Let  me  unlock 
my  trunk  and  show — " 

"  I  vhants  no  matches — no  dobacco — no  zigars  !  "  she  inter- 
rupted ;  and  her  husband  came  round  the  corner  and,  after  eying 
the  agent  for  a  moment,  remarked : 

"  If  you  don't  be  quick  out  of  here  I  shall  not  have  any  shoking 
about  it ! " 

At  dusk  last  night  the  agent  was  sitting  on  a  salt  barrel  in  front 
of  a  commission  house,  and  the  shadows  of  evening  were  slowly 
deepening  the  melancholy  look  on  his  face. 


THAD.  STEYENS  AND  ALECK  STEPHENS. 

Thad.  Stevens,  the  great  Northern  radical,  and  Alex.  Stephens, 
of  Georgia,  the  great  Southern  radical,  met  after  Appomattox  and 
talked  about  the  war. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Stephens,"  said  old  Thad.,  "  how  do  you  rebels  feel 
after  being  licked  by  the  Yankees?  " 


546  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"We  feel,  I  suppose  a  good  deal  as  Lazarus  did,"  said  the  Georgia 
fire  eater. 

"  How  is  that? " 

""Why  Thad.,  poor  Lazarus  was  licked  by  the  dogs,  wasn't  he?'* 


ZACK  CHANDLER  ON  DEMOCKACY. 

Zack  Chandler  had  three  men  working  in  a  saw-mill  in  the  woods 
below  Saginaw.  During  Lincoln's  last  campaign,  Zack  went  up 
to  the  saw-mill  to  see  how  the  men  were  going  to  vote.  He  found 
that  each  had  a  different  political  faith.  One  was  a  Democrat,  one 
a  Republican  and  one  a  Greenbacker.  A  farm-boy  had  just  killed  a 
fine  woodchuck,  and  Zack  offered  to  give  it  to  the  man  who  would 
give  the  best  reason  for  his  political  faith. 

"  I'm  a  Republican,"  said  the  first  man,  "  because  my  party  freed 
the  slave,  put  down  the  rebellion  and  never  fired  on  the  old  flag." 

«  Good  ! "  said  old  Zack. 

"  And  I  am  a  Greenbacker,"  said  the  second  man,"  because  if  my 
party  should  get  into  power  every  man  would  have  a  pocket  full  of 
money." 

"  First-rate ! "  said  Uncle  Zack.  "And  now  you,"  addressing  the 
third  :  "  Why  are  you  a  Democrat  ?  " 

"  Because,  sir,"  said  the  man  trying  to  think  of  a  good  democratic 
answer — "  because — because  I  want  that  woodchuck !  " 


ELAINE'S  KIL-MA-ROO  STORY. 

In  the  Elaine  Presidential  campaign,  the  Democrats  were  con- 
tinually saying  that  Elaine  would  be  a  radical  President. 

"He'll  get  up  a  war  with  Germany  about  Samoa,"  they  said, 
"  or  get  us  into  an  embroglio  with  France  on  account  of  the  Suez 
Canal." 

But  at  heart  Elaine  is  a  conservative  man.  To  illustrate,  Elaine 
used  this  illustration : 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  the  Democrats  always  have  some  trouble  ahead, 
but  it  is  always  imaginary.  The  Republicans  are  going  to  wreck 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  547 

the  republic  by  high  tariff,  one  day,  and  bankrupt  the  nation  through 
the  pension  office  the  next.  But  all  this  trouble  is  imaginary. 
When  we  get  to  it  it  is  gone. 

"  The  Democrats  remind  me  of  the  story  of  the  man  who  was 
carrying  something  across  Fulton  ferry  in  a  close  box.  Every  now 
and  then  he  would  open  the  box  curiously,  peep  in  and  then  close 
the  lid  mysteriously.  His  actions  soon  excited  the  curiosity  of  a 
naturalist  who  sat  on  the  seat  by  him.  Unable  to  conceal  his  curios- 
ity further,  the  naturalist  touched  him  on  the  shoulder  and  said : 

" '  I  beg  pardon,  sir,  but  I'm  curious  to  know  what  you  have  in 
that  box.  What  is  it  ? ' 

" '  Oh,  I  don't  want  to  tell.    It  will  get  all  over  the  boat.' 

"  '  Is  it  a  savage  animal  ? ' 

"  *  Yes — kills  every  thing.'     Then  the  man  peeped  in  again. 

"  Still  growing  more  curious,  the  naturalist  begged  him  to  tell 
its  name. 

"  '  It's  a  Kil-ma-roo  from  the  center  of  Africa — a  very  savage 
beast — eats  men  and — ' 

" '  And  what  do  you  feed  it  on  ? '  interrupted  the  naturalist. 

"  '  Snakes,  sir — plain  snakes.' 

"  '  And  where  do  you  get  snakes  enough  to  feed  such  a  monster  2 ' 
asked  the  eager  but  trembling  naturalist. 

" '  Well,  sir,  my  brother  in  Brooklyn  drinks  a  good  deal,  has 
delirium  tremens,  and  when  he  sees  snakes  we  just  catch  'em  and — ' 

"'But  these  are  imaginary  snakes,'  argued  the  naturalist.  '  How 
can  you  feed  a  savage  beast  on  imaginary  snakes  ? ' 

" '  Why,  the  fact  is,'  said  the  man,  opening  the  box  and  blowing 
in  it,  '  Don't  say  a  word  about  it,  but  this  is  an  imaginary  Kil-ma- 
roo.'  " 


DR.  HAMMOND,  DR.  BLISS  AND  GEN.  SHERIDAN. 

One  day  when  they  were  criticising  Dr.  Bliss,  General  Sheridan 
came  to  the  Doctor's  defense. 

"Dr.  Bliss  was  a  good  physician,"  said  General  Sheridan,  "he 
saved  my  life  once." 

"How?    How  did  Bliss  save  your  life?"  asked  Dr.  Hammond. 

"  Well,"  said  Sheridan,  "  I  was  very  sick  in  the  hospital  after  the 


548  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

battle  of  Winchester.  One  day  they  sent  for  Dr  Agnew  of  Phila- 
delphia, and  he  gave  me  some  medicine,  but  I  kept  getting  worse. 
Then  they  sent  for  Dr.  Frank  Hamilton  and  he  gave  me  some  more 
medicine,  but  I  grew  worse  and  worse.  Then  they  sent  for  Dr. 
Bliss,  and — " 

"  And  you  still  grew  worse  ?  " 

"  No,  Dr.  Bliss  didn't  come  ;  he  saved  my  life ! " 


CHIEF  JUSTICE  FULLER. 

Chief  Justice  Fuller,  when  a  boy,  belonged  to  a  debating  club  in 
Old  town,  Me.  One  evening  capital  punishment  was  debated.  The 
deacon  of  the  church  was  for  hanging.  Young  Fuller  was  opposed. 

Said  the  deacon,  quoting  from  the  Mosaic  law :  "  Whoso 
sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  his  blood  shall  be  shed."  Thinking 
this  to  be  a  bombshell  to  his  opponents  he  dwelt  upon  it  till  his 
time  had  expired,  when  the  boy  sprang  to  his  feet  and  said : 

"  Supposing  we  take  the  law  which  the  gentleman  has  quoted 
and  see  what  the  logical  deduction  would  come  to.  For  example, 
one  man  kills  another;  another  man  kills  him,  and  so  on  until  we 
come  to  the  last  man  on  earth.  Who's  going  to  kill  him  ?  He 
dare  not  commit  suicide,  for  that  same  law  forbids  it.  Now,  deacon," 
continued  the  boy,  "  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  that  last  man  ? " 

The  boy's  logic  called  out  rounds  of  applause  and  vanquished  the 
deacon. 


JUDGE  OLDS. 

Judge  Olds,  of  Eichmond,  was  examining  a  man  who  had  pleaded 
guilty  of  bank  robbery. 

"  Did  you  have  any  confederates  ? "  asked  the  judge. 

"  No,  jedge,"  said  the  prisoner,  "  the  fellers  that  helped  me  was 
democrats,  o'  course,  but  they  wasn't  rebs." 


GEN.  SICKLES  ON  HOWARD'S  DRUMMER. 
"  Speaking  of  war  stories,"  said  General  Sickles,  "the  best  thing 
happened  over  in  Howard's  Eleventh  Corps.     It  seems  that  they  had 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  549 

a  drummer  boy  over  there  who  always  lived  well.  He  was  in  Col. 
Arrowsmith's  regiment,  the  26th  X.  Y.  This  drummer,  while  the 
regiment  was  on  the  move,  had  a  penchant  for  foraging  on  his  own 
account,  and  the  chickens  had  to  roost  high  to  escape  his  far-reaching 
hands.  Whenever  night  overtook  them,  this  drummer  had  a  good 
supper  provided  for  himself.  O  n  one  occasion  he  had  raked  in  a  couple 
•of  turkeys  and  had  put  them  into  his  drum  for  convenience  in  carry- 
ing. "When  the  regiment  was  halted  for  the  night,  Colonel  Arro w smith 
immediately  ordered  dress  parade,  and  the  drummers  were  expected 
to  beat  up.  The  forager  made  his  drumsticks  go,  but  the  quick-eyed 
Colonel  noticed  that  he  was  not  drumming. 

"  'Adjutant,'  said  the  Colonel,  ' that  man  isn't  drumming.  Why 
ain't  he  drumming?' 

"The  Adjutant  stepped  up  to  him,  saying,  'Why  ain't  you 
drumming  ? ' 

" '  Because,'  said  the  quick-witted  drummer,  '  I  have  got  two 
turkeys  in  my  drum,  and  one  of  'em  is  for  the  Colonel.' 

"  The  Adjutant  went  back  and  the  Colonel  asked,  '  What  is  it  ? 

"  '  Why,  he  says  he  has  got  two  turkeys  in  his  drum,  and  one 
of  'em  is  for  the  Colonel.' 

"Up  to  this  point  the  conversation  had  been  carried  on  sotto 
voce,  but  when  the  Adjutant  reported,  Colonel  Arrowsmith  raised 
his  voice  so  that  all  could  hear. 

" '  What !  Sick  is  he  ?  Why  didn't  he  say  so  before  ?  Send 
him  to  his  tent  at  once.' " 


GEEELEY  TAKEN  FOR  A  CLERGYMAN. 

Stephen  Girard's  will  prohibited  clergymen  from  ever  entering 
the  doors  of  Girard  College.  One  day  Horace  Greeley,  who  usually 
wore  a  white  tie,  and  otherwise  looked  like  a  Methodist  clergyman, 
was  passing  in  when  the  janitor  shouted : 

"  Here,  you  can't  pass  in  here,  sir ;  the  rule  forbids  it." 

"The I  can't,"  replied  the  excited  editor. 

"  All  right,  sir,"  rejoined  the  janitor ;  "  pass  right  in." 


550  KINO 8  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 


SHEEMAN  AND  PEESIDENT  TAYLOR 

Gen.  "W.  T.  Sherman,  has  been  the  subject  of  a  thousand  good 
stories.  One  of  the  best  occurred  when  President  Taylor,  after  the 
war  with  Mexico,  sent  the  young  captain  out  to  Arizona  and  South- 
ern California,  to  investigate  the  value  of  our  new  possessions 
gained  from  Mexico,  by  the  war.  Sherman  was  gone  a  year.  He 
penetrated  the  sandy  deserts  of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico,  and 
looked  over  the  cactus  country  of  southern  California  •  and  then 
returned  to  Washington,  and  called  on  the  President. 

"  Well,  Captain,"  said  President  Taylor."  what  do  you  think  of 
our  new  possessions,  will  they  pay  for  the  blood  and  treasure  spent 
in  the  war  ?  " 

"  Do  you  want  my  honest  opinion  ?"  replied  Sherman. 

"  Yes,  tell  us  privately  just  what  you  think." 

"  Well,  General,"  said  Sherman,  "  it  cost  us  one  hundred  millions 
of  dollars,  and  ten  thousand  men,  to  carry  on  the  war  with  Mexico." 

"  Yes  fully  that,  but  we  got  Arizona,  New  Mexico  and  Southern 
California." 

"  Well,  General,"  continued  Sherman,  "  I've  been  out  there  and 
looked  them  over — all  that  country,  and  between  you  and  me,  I  feel 
that  we'll  have  to  go  to  war  again.  Yes;  we've  got  to  have  another 
war." 

"  What  for  ?"  asked  Taylor. 

"  Why  to  make  'em  take  the  d — d  country  back ! " 


SENATOR  EVAETS  AND  GOYEENOE  HILL. 

Mr.  Evarts,  with  all  his  learning,  often  had  to  listen  to  long 
bursts  of  empty  oratory,  from  young  and  inexperienced  lawyers. 
Many  years  ago,  when  Gov.  David  B.  Hill  was  practicing  law,  he 
had  a  case  where  Evarts  was  his  opponent.  Hill  was  delivering  his 
maiden  speech.  Like  most  young  lawyers,  he  was  florid,  rhetorical, 
scattering  and  weary.  For  four  weary  hours  he  talked  at  the  court 
and  the  jury,  until  every  body  felt  like  lynching  him.  When  he  got 
through.  Mr.  Evarts  deliberately  arose,  looked  sweetly  at  the  Judge,, 
and  said : 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  551 

"  Your  Honor,  I  will  follow  the  example  of  my  young  friend 
who  has  just  finished,  and  submit  the  case  without  argument.'' 
Then  he  sat  down,  and  the  silence  was  large  and  oppressive. 


SHERMAN  AND  JOSEPH  JEFFEESON. 

When  I  asked  General  Sherman  what  was  the  bravest  thing  he 
ever  did,  he  said  : 

"  Well,  I  saved  a  man's  life  once." 

"  Who  was  it  ?  " 

"Joe  Jefferson." 

"  Why,  how  did  you  save  his  Ine  ?  " 

"But  I  did,  though,"  continued  Sherman,  "and  I  look  back  to  it 
with  unalloyed  pride  and  pleasure.  It  is  something  to  be  proud  of 
— saving  such  a  life  as  belonged  to  Joe  Jefferson." 

"  How  did  it  happen  ?     Please  tell  me." 

"Well,"  said  Sherman,  solemnly.  "  It  occurred  last  summer.  We 
were  both  in  the  parlor  up-stairs,  talking  to  some  ladies.  Joe  had  to 
leave  early,  and  excused  himself.  After  he  went  out  I  noticed  a  bundle 
of  manuscript  on  the  floor.  I  thought  at  first  it  belonged  to  me,  but 
finding  mine  safe,  I  hurried  out  to  the  elevator  after  Joe,  but  he  had 
gone  by  way  of  the  stairs.  I  halloed  'Joe,  Joe,'  but  he  didn't  hear 
me.  I  ran  down  after  him  two  steps  at  a  time.  I  finally  caught 
up  with  him,  and  handing  him  the  manuscript,  said  : 

"  '  Here,  Joe,  you've  forgotten  something.' 

"A  serious  expression  spread  over  his  face,  as  he  took  it,  and 
said,  in  a  tremulously  solemn  and  impressive  voice : 

"  '  My  God,  you've  saved  my  life  ! ' 

"  It  was  his  autobiography,  which  he  was  engaged  upon  at  the 
time." 


EOBEET  TOOMBS  AND  JOHN  B.  FLOYD. 

Eobt.  Toombs  and  John  B.  Floyd,  both  members  of  Jeff 
Davis'  cabinet,  were  talking  of  where  they  would  like  to  be  buried. 
It  was  after  the  war,  and  notwithstanding  defeat,  each  loved  De- 
mocracy and  the  Confederacy.  They  had  been  reading  letters  from 


552  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  John  Slidell  and  Henry  A.  Wise,  brother  cabinet 
officers. 

"  When  I  die,"  said  Floyd,  very  seriously,  "  I  wish  I  could  be 
buried  right  under  that  Confederate  monument  in  Richmond." 

"  What  for  ? "  asked  Toombs. 

"  Because  I  want  my  last  sweet  rest  to  be  where  a  Yankee  will 
never  come." 

"  I  would  be  buried  there,  too,"'  said  Toombs,  "  but  I  hate  the 
Devil  worse  than  I  hate  a  Yankee,  and  I  almost  wish  I  could  be 
buried  in  the  colored  cemetery." 

"  Wha — what  for?  "  asked  Floyd,  deeply  surprised. 

"Because,"  said  Toombs,  "the  devil  will  never  trouble  me 
there.  He'd  never  think  of  looking  for  an  old  rebel  democrat  in  a 
colored  graveyard ! " 


JOE  BROWN,  TOOMBS  AND  ALEX  STEPHENS. 

Senator  Joe  Brown  once  came  near  fighting  a  duel  with  Bob 
Toombs.  Toombs  and  he  had  a  quarrel  as  to  reconstruction  meas- 
ures, and  the  story  is  that  they  both  expected  to  fight.  Toombs 
made  no  preparation  for  the  duel.  Joe  Brown  went  about  his 
arrangements  in  the  same  practical  business  way  for  which  he  is  so 
noted,  and  which  has  made  him  a  success  as  a  fortune  maker,  and  a 
great  statesman.  He  drew  up  his  will,  put  his  estate  in  order,  and 
clipped  all  the  trees  of  his  orchard  in  practicing  with  his  pistol.  I 
think  it  was  in  this  affair  that  Brown  called  Toombs  an  unscru- 
pulous liar,  and  that  Toombs,  in  talking  to  one  of  his  friends  about 
it,  characterized  Brown  as  a  hypocritical  old  deacon,  saying : 

"  What  can  I  do  with  him  2  If  I  challenge  him  he  will  dodge 
behind  the  door  of  the  Baptist  Church,"  and  he  then  referred  to  the 
statement  of  Ben  Hill,  in  reply  to  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  wherein 
Hill  refused  to  fight,  saying  to  Stephens  :  "  Sir,  I  have  a  family  to 
support,  and  a  God  to  serve,  but  you  have  neither." 

This  remark  of  Toombs  was  reported  to  Brown,  and  Brown 
went  to  his  church,  and  got  a  certificate,  stating  that  he  had  left  it. 
He  sent  the  certificate  to  Toombs,  and  told  him  that  he  would  be 
glad  to  accommodate  him,  and  that  he  would  accept  any  challenge 
he  might  make.  It  was  while  Toombs  was  waiting  to  make  the 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  553 

challenge  that  he  practiced  with  his  pistol.  Toombs  knew  that  he 
was  a  good  shot,  and  he  saved  his  life  by  not  saying  any  thing 
more  about  it. 


FORAKER  ON  DANIEL  VOORHEES. 

"  The  best  story  about  Senator  Daniel  Voorhees,"  said  Ex-Gov- 
ernor Foraker,  of  Ohio,  "  is  laid  years  ago  in  Terre  Haute.  The 
distinguished  Senator  was  once  a  hard-working  lawyer.  On  one 
occasion  he  defended  a  gambler  for  killing  a  man.  There  were 
some  doubts  about  the  case — whether  it  was  murder  or  manslaughter. 
Voorhees  made  a  superb  plea,  but  still  the  gambler's  friends  were 
afraid  he  would  be  convicted.  They  had  plenty  of  money  and  had 
raised  $5,000  to  influence  a  juryman,  as  those  were  old  times  when 
justice  was  not  as  pure  as  now.  Well,  they  picked  out  a  weak  jury- 
man and  agreed  to  give  him  $5,000  if  he  would  '  hang  the  jury.' 

"  The  man  earned  his  money,"  said  Foraker,  "for,  sure  enough, 
the  jury  disagreed.  The  next  day  there  was  a  meeting  of  Yoorhees 
and  the  friends  to  pay  the  faithful  juryman. 

" '  You  earned  the  money,'  said  the  friends  of  Yoorhees,  '  and 
here  it  is  with  our  thanks.' 

'"  Earned  it,' said  the  juryman.  'I  guess  I  did.  I  kept  that 
jury  out  two  days.  I  wouldn't  give  them  a  wink  of  sleep  till  they 
agreed  with  me  in  a  verdict  of  manslaughter.' 

"  '  How  did  they  stand  when  they  first  went  out  ? '  asked  Yoor- 
hees. 

"  '  Well,  there  were  eleven  of  them  for  acquittal — but  I  brought 
'em  round  ! ' " 


ELAINE,  CONKLING,  HAMLIN. 

James  G.  Elaine,  our  Secretary  of  State,  used  to  have  a  fund  of 
anecdotes  before  he  became  a  conspicuous  presidential  candidate, 
but  of  late  years  he  professes  to  sit  still  and  let  other  people  tell  the 
funny  stories. 

It  seems  that  Elaine,  and  Lincoln's  old  vice-president,  Hamlin, 
didn't  agree  very  well  in  the  last  years  of  Hamlin's  life.  I  presume 


554  KINGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

it  was  political  jealousy.  Still  Elaine  never  criticised  Hamlin.  He 
said  he  liked  him,  and  I  believe  he  did. 

"Why  Hamlin,"  he  continued,  "saved  the  life  of  a  dear  friend 
once.  Yes,  he  saved  my  poor  friend  Brooks  from  sure  death." 

"  How  was  it  2 "  asked  a  bystander. 

"  Brooks  says  Hamlin  saved  his  life  three  distinct  times  in  the 
Mexican  "War,  and  that  he  could  never  repay  him  the  debt  of  grati- 
tude he  owed  him.  It  was  this  way :  Brooks  says  he  always  kept 
his  eye  on  Hamlin  during  an  engagement.  "Whenever  Hamlin  ran, 
he  ran,  too,  and  three  times  Hamlin  saved  his  precious  life." 

Blaine  and  Conkling  said  savage  things  about  each  other  for 
years,  but  their  friendship  never  fully  ceased  till  Blaine  said,  "Conk- 
ling  struts  into  the  Senate  like  a  turkey  gobbler."  This  the  Senator 
never  forgave,  and,  after  it,  he  never  missed  a  chance  to  ridicule  the 
Maine  statesman. 

"When  Blaine  was  up  for  the  presidency  in  1884,  a  friend  went 
to  Conkling  and  asked  him  if  he  would  take  the  stump  for  the 
Maine  Senator. 

"  I  can't,"  said  Conkling,  spitefully,  "  I  have  retired  from  crimi- 
nal practice." 

Mr.  Blaine  got  even  with  Conkling  for  this  by  telling  a  story 
about  Conkling's  vanity.  "  One  day,"  said  Mr.  Blaine,  "  when 
Conkling  and  I  were  friends,  the  proud  New  York  Senator  asked 
Sam  Cox  whom  he  thought  were  the  t\vo  greatest  characters  Amer- 
ica ever  produced  ? " 

"  I  should  say,"  said  Cox,  solemnly,  "  I  should  say  the  two  most 
distinguished  men  in  America  have  been  General  Washington  and 
yourself." 

"Very  true,"  said  Conkling,  "but  I  don't  see  why  you  should 
drag  in  the  name  of  Washington."  [Laughter.] 


HEXEY  W.  LONGFELLOW'S  FUNNIEST  POEM. 
The  poet  Longfellow  wrote  this  funny  poem  for  Blanche  Eose- 
velt: 

There  was  a  little  girl,  and  she  had  a  little  curl 
Right  in  the  middle  of  her  forehead; 
And  when  she  \vas  good,  she  was  very,  very  good. 
And  when  she  was  bad,  she  was  horrid. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  555 

SWING,  COLLYEK,  JONES,  FITZ  HUGH  LEE. 

There  is  no  one  so  easily  shocked  by  an  oath,  or  even  an  irre- 
ligious story,  as  Dr.  Collyer.  Still  he  used  to  delight  in  telling  how 
near  Professor  Swing  came  to  swearing. 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Dr.  Collyer, "  that  the  Rev.  David  Swing  and  I 
are  very  dear  friends,  and  that  I  really  am  very  fond  of  him.  But 
Mr.  Beecher  told  me  a  story  about  Brother  Swing's  profanity  that 
quite  upset  me." 

"How  was  it?" 

"Well,"  said  the  Doctor,  with  mock  gravity,  "I  don't  say  it 
myself,  but  Beecher  says  that  one  day  while  Dr.  Swing  was  a 
guest  of  Stuart  Robson  and  Mr.  Crane  at  Cohasset,  his  conversation 
bordered  on  profanity." 

"  Impossible,"  I  exclaimed.     "  What  were  the  circumstances  ? " 

"Well,"  said  Dr.  Collyer,  still  very  solemn,  "it  happened  this 
way:  Robson,  Crane  and  Swing  were  at  anchor,  with  their  lines 
out  for  blue  fish.  After  a  long  and  patient  waiting,  something 
caught  Robson's  line  and  he  exclaimed,  excitedly : 

"  *  I  just  had  a  d — n  good  bite ! ' 

"  '  So  did  I  ? '  said  Dr.  Swing." 

When  some  one  told  the  story  to  Sam  Jones,  he  said  :  "  Well, 
Swing  came  about  as  near  swearing  as  the  Richmond  editors  did  to 
lying,  when  I  held  my  revival  there." 

"  How  was  that  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  You  see  we  had  been  accusing  the  Richmond  editors  of  lying 
about  our  meetings,  and  the  term,  'lying  editors,'  got  into  common 
use.  Even  children  used  it.  One  day  a  little  son  of  Governor  Fitz 
Hugh  Lee,  who  had  been  off  at  school  with  some  worldly  boys,  who 
made  him  forget  his  father's  Christian  teachings,  came  home  with 
this  conundrum : 

"  '  Father,'  he  said,  '  what  is  the  difference  between  a  man  who 
dyes  wool  on  lambs  and  a  Richmond  editor  ? ' 

"'Well,  now,  really  my  son,'  said  the  Governor,  beaming 
benignly  on  his  offspring.  'lam  not  prepared  to  state.  What  is 
the  difference?' 

" '  Why,  pa,  one  is  a  lamb  dyer  and  the  other  a ' 

" '  What !  what !  my  son ! '  interrupted  the  Governor. 

"  c a  Richmond  editor,  I  was  going  to  say,  before  you  inter- 
rupted me.' " 


556  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PUPILT. 

MOSEBY,  ELLSWORTH,  KILPATEICK  AND 
FITZ  HUGH  LEE. 

"  Talk  about  my  war  record,"  said  Colonel  Moseby  at  a  political 
meeting  in  Alexandria,  Ya.  "My  war  record  is  a  part  of  the 
State's  history.  "Why,  gentlemen,  I  carried  the  last  Confederate 
flag  through  this  town." 

"  Yes,"  replied  Fitz  Hugh  Lee,  "  for  I  was  there  at  the  time." 

"  Thank  you  for  your  fortunate  recollection,"  gratefully  exclaimed 
Moseby.  "  It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  there  still  lives  some  men 
who  move  aside  envy  and  testify  to  the  courage  of  their  fellow 
beings.  As  I  say,  gentlemen,  my  war  record  is  a  part  of  the  State's 
history,  for  the  gentleman  here  will  tell  you  that  I  carried  the  last 
Confederate  flag  through  this  town." 

"  That's  a  fact,"  said  Fitz  Hugh  Lee.  "  He  carried  the  last 
Confederate  flag  through  this  town,  but  Kilpatrick  and  Ellsworth 
were  after  him,  and  he  carried  it  so  blamed  fast  you  couldn't  have 
told  whether  it  was  the  Confederate  flag  or  a  small-pox  warning." 


THADDEUS    STEVENS. 

One  day  Thad.  Stevens  was  practicing  in  the  Carlisle  courts,  and 
he  didn't  like  the  ruling  of  the  Presiding  Judge.  A  second  time  the 
Judge  ruled  against  "  old  Thad."  when  the  old  man  got  up  with  scar- 
let face  and  quivering  lips  and  commenced  tying  up  his  papers  as  if 
to  quit  the  court  room. 

"  Do  T  understand,  Mr.  Stevens,"  asked  the  Judge,  eying  "  old 
Thad."  indignantly,  "that  you  wish  to  show  your  contempt  for  this 
court  ? " 

"No,  sir;  no,  sir,"  replied  "old  Thad."  "I  don't  wan't  to 
show  my  contempt,  sir;  I'm  trying  to  conceal  it !  " 


GENEKAL  LOGAN'S  PLAIN  TALK. 

Daniel  Yoorhees,  who  knew  John  A.  Logan  in  southern  Illinois 
before  the  war,  tells  us  that  on  a  certain  occasion  young  Logan 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  557 

found  it  necessary  to  doubt  the  word  of  a  man,  and  told  him  so 
without  any  circumlocution. 

"Don't  you  call  me  a  liar,  sir,"  said  the  man,  excitedly,  "  I  have 
a  reputation  to  maintain,  and  I  mean  to  maintain  it,  sir." 

"  I  know  it,"  said  Logan,  "  and  you  are  maintaining  it  every 
time  you  tell  a  lie." 


LONGSTREET  ON  FAST  MARCHING. 

"Jabe  Mathis,"  said  General  Longstreet,  "of  the  13th  Georgia, 
was  a  good  soldier,  but  one  day,  when  the  Confederates  were 
retreating  from  the  gory  field  of  Gettysburg,  Jabe  threw  his  mus- 
ket on  the  ground,  seated  himself  by  the  roadside  and  exclaimed 
with  much  vehemence : 

"  '  I'll  be  doggon  if  I  walk  another  step !      I'm  broke  down  !     I 
can't  do  it ! '     And  Jabe  was  the  picture  of  despair. 

" '  Git  up,  man,'  exclaimed  the  Captain,  '  don't  you  know  the 
Yankees  are  following  us  ?  They'll  get  you  sure.' 

"  'Can't  help  it,'  said  Jabe, '  I'm  done  for ;  I'll  not  march  another 
step!' 

"  The  Confederates  passed  along  over  the  crest  of  a  hill  and  lost 
sight  of  poor,  dejected  Jabe. 

"  In  a  moment  there  was  a  fresh  rattle  of  musketry  and  a 
renewed  crash  of  shells.  Suddenly  Jabe  appeared  on  the  crest  of 
the  hill,  moving  like  a  hurricane  and  followed  by  a  cloud  of  dust. 
As  he  dashed  past  his  captain,  that  officer  said  : 

"  '  Hello,  Jabe !    thought  you  wasn't  going  to  march  any  more.' 

" '  Thunder ! '  replied  Jabe,  as  he  hit  the  dust  with  renewed 
vigor  ;  l  you  don't  call  this  marching,  do  you  ? '  " 


GENERAL  EWELL  ON  THE  IRISHMAN. 

"During  the  war,"  said  General  E well,  "  several  Confederate 
regiments  were  ordered  to  march,  although  none  of  the  privates 
knew  their  destination.  When  they  set  out,  the  road  was  narrow, 
and  the  captain  in  command  of  one  regiment  gave  the  order  : 

" '  By  doubling  !     Right  face  !     Forward,  march  ! ' 
37 


558  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

.  \  ~. 

" { To  Dublin ! '  shouted  an  Irishman  in  the  ranks.  (  Arrah,  good 
luck,  me  boys  !  We're  going  to  Dublin !  Sure,  the  gineral  has 
found  out  the  right  place  to  go  to  at  last ! ' 

" '  Where  do  you  say  we're  going  ? '  called  two  or  three  voices. 

"'To  Dublin,  don't  ye  hear? ' 

"'Keep  still,  you  foreign  bog-trotter  !' 

"  '  Ah  ha,  me  boys ! '  continued  Tim.  *  When  yez  gets  to  Dublin, 
It'll  be  you  will  be  the  foreigners  there,  and  it'll  be  me  that'll  be 
the  native  American.' " 


HENRY  WATTERSON  ON  SUMNER  AND  GREELEY. 

Mr.  Watterson,  who  always  maintained  that  the  anti-slavery 
republicans  like  Sumner,  Greeley  and  old  Ben  Wade  only  loved  the 
colored  man  just  to  get  his  vote  and  use,  delights  to  quote  this  speech 
•which  Watterson  says  was  delivered  by  old  Abram  Jasper  at  the 
colored  picnic  at  Louisville  during  the  last  presidential  campaign: 

"  Feller  freemen,"  says  he,  "you  all  know  me.  I  am  Abram 
Jasper,  a  republican  from  way  back.  When  there  has  been  any 
work  to  do,  I  has  done  it.  When  there  has  been  any  votin' 
to  do,  I  has  voted  early  and  often.  When  there  has  been  any 
fightin'  to  do,  I  have  been  in  the  thick  of  it.  I  are  'bove  proof,  old 
line  and  tax  paid.  And  I  has  seed  many  changes,  too.  I  has  seed 
the  Republicans  up.  I  has  seed  the  Democrats  up.  But  I  is  yit  to 
see  a  nigger  up.  T'other  night  I  had  a  dream.  I  dreampt  that  I 
died  and  went  to  heaven.  When  I  got  to  de  pearly  gates  ole  Salt 
Peter  he  says : 

"  'Who's  dar  ?'  sez  he. 

" ' Abram  Jasper,'  sez  I. 

"  'Is  you  mounted  or  is  you  afoot  2'  says  he. 

" '  I  is  afoot,'  says  I. 

"  'Well,  you  can't  get  in  here,' says  he.  'Nobody  'lowed  in  here 
'cept  them  as  come  mounted,'  says  he. 

"  'Dat's  hard  on  me,'  says  I,  'arter  comin'  all  dat  distance.'  But 
he  never  says  nothin'  mo',  and  so  I  starts  back  an'  about  half  way 
down  de  hill  who  does  I  meet  but  dat  good  ol'  Horace  Greeley. 
'Whar's  you  gwine,  Mr.  Greeley?'  says  I. 

"  'I  is  gwine  to  heaven  wid  Mr.  Sumner,'  says  he. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  559 

"  'Why,  Horace,'  says  I,  'tain't  no  use.  I's  just  been  up  dar  an 
nobody's  'lowed  to  get  in  'cept  dey  comes  mounted,  an'  you's  afoot." 

"  'Is  dat  so  ?'  says  he. 

"Mr.  Greeley  sorter  scratched  his  head,  an'  arter  awhile  he  sa}7s, 
says  he:  'Abram,  I  tell  what  let's  do.  You  is  a  likely  lad.  Sup- 
pose you  git  down  on  all  fours  and  Sumner  and  I'll  mount  an'  ride 
you  in,  an'  dat  way  we  kin  all  git  in.' 

"  'Gen'lemen,'  says  I,  'do  you  think  you  could  work  it  ?' 

"  'I  know  I  kin,'  says  bof  of  'em. 

"  So  down  I  gits  on  all  fours,  and  Greeley  and  Sumner  gets  astrad- 
dle, an'  we  ambles  up  de  hill  agin,  an'  prances  up  to  de  gate,  an'  old 
Salt  Peter  says: 

"'Who's  dar?' 

"  'We  is,  Charles  Sumner  and  Horace  Greeley,'  shouted  Horace. 

"  'Is  you  both  mounted  or  is  you  afoot  ?'  says  Peter. 

"  'We  is  bof  mounted,'  says  Mr.  Greeley. 

"  'All  right,'  says  Peter,  'all  right,'  says  he;  'jest  hitch  yourhoss 
outside,  gen'lemen,  and  come  right  in.' " 


WADE  HAMPTON,  SUMNER  AND  BEN  WADE. 

Gen.  Wade  Hampton,  of  South  Carolina,  and  Charles  Sumner 
•were  talking  in  the  rotunda  of  the  Senate  Chamber,  after  the  war, 
about  the  reconstructed  South.  General  Hampton  was  praising  the 
people  and  the  States  of  Virginia  and  South  Carolina. 

"They  are  great  States  —  and  a  brave  people  live  in  Virginia  and 
South  Carolina,"  said  the  General. 

Just  then  Ben  Wade  came  up  and  joined  in. 

"  Yes,"  said  Ben  Wade,  "  I  have  known  a  good  many  people  who 
went  down  there  myself,  and  splendid  people  they  were,  too,  as 
brave  and  high-toned  as  the  Huguenots." 

"  You  did,  sir? "  said  Wade  Hampton,  proudly. 

"  Oh,  yes,  sir.  I  knew  some  of  the  greatest  men  Virginia  and 
South  Carolina  ever  saw,  sir  —  knew  'em  intimately,  sir,"  continued 
old  Ben,  confidentially  drawing  his  chair  closer  to  General  Hamp- 
ton. 

"Who  did  you  know  down  thar,  sir  —  in  the  old  Palmetto 
State  ?  "  asked  General  Hampton. 


560  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

""Well,  sir,  I  knew  General  Sherman,  General  Grr.nt  and  Gen- 
eral Kilpatrick,  who  went — " 

"  Great  guns  ! "  interrupted  Hampton  ;  and  then  he  threw  down 
his  cigar  and  rushed  straight  into  the  bar-room  to  drown  his 
troubles. 


SITTING  BULL  AND  GENERAL  MILES. 

Sitting  Bull,  when  at  the  Red  Cloud  agency,  was  interviewed  by 
the  Quaker  Indian  Commissioners.  They  asked  him  if  he  had  any 
grave  grievance. 

Sitting  Bull  was  silent. 

By  and  by  he  clutched  his  tomahawk  and  said :  "  Indian  very 
sensitive.  Indian  no  like  being  lied  about.  If  Indian  ever  get  back 
to  the  white  man  again,  he'll  scalp  the  white-livered  son  of  a  gun 
who's  been  telling  around  that  Sitting  Bull  graduated  at  West 
Point." 


HOW  BISHOP  POTTER  WAS   INTRODUCED  TO 
MAYOR  GRANT. 

The  dignified  Bishop  Potter  and  our  worldly  Mayor  Grant  did 
not  know  each  other  the  other  day.  They  are  acquainted  now. 
It  seems  that  Mayor  Grant  went  into  Knox's,  the  hatter,  to  get 
his  silk  hat  ironed  after  being  caught  in  the  centennial  rain-storm 
parade.  After  handing  his  hat  to  the  attendant  to  be  ironed,  the 
Mayor  stood  bare-headed  waiting. 

Just  then  in  came  the  dignified  Bishop  Potter,  who  mistook 
Mayor  Grant  for  one  of  the  shop  walkers.  Walking  up  to  the 
Mayor,  the  Bishop  held  out  his  hat  to  him  and  asked  : 

"  Have  you  a  hat  like  this  ? " 

Mayor  Grant,  in  the  coolest  manner  took  the  hat,  turned  it  over,, 
examined  it  closely,  looked  at  the  inside,  then  at  the  outside  and 
then  remarked  in  slow  and  measured  tones : 

"No  sir,  I  haven't  a  hat  like  that,  and  if  I  had  sir,  I  am  d d 

if  I  would  wear  it ! " 

Just  then  Mr.  Knox  came  along,  and  seeing  the  dilemma,  intro- 
duced the  Bishop  to  the  Mayor,  when  they  both  screamed  with 
laughter. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  561 

PHILIP  D.  AKMOUK. 

Henry  Yillard  asked  Philip  D.  Armour  to  define  a  mugwump. 

"  I  am  not  a  politician,"  said  Mr.  Armour,  the  king  of  pork  pack- 
ers. "  I  don't  think  I  can  tell  in  plain  language  what  a  mugwump 
is,  still  I  think  I  saw  one  once." 

"  Where  ?"  asked  Mr.  Villard. 

"  We  raised  one  in  Stockbridge,  N.  Y.,  where  I  was  born.  We 
had  a  very  wicked  farmer  there — very  wicked — John  Whitney  was 
his  name,  but  one  day  he  surprised  every  one  by  leaving  the  world 
and  his  wicked  associates  and  joining  the  Baptist  church.  He 
remained  an  exemplary  church  member  three  days,  but  coming  into 
town  one  day  he  got  drunk  and  the  church  turned  him  out." 

"  What  then  ?  " 

"  Well,  Whitney  came  back  into  the  world  again,  but  the  boys 
wouldn't  speak  to  him.  They  even  went  so  far  as  to  hold  a  meet- 
ing in  the  Bellow's  bar-room  and  resolved  not  to  receive  him  back. 
"  Whitney  is  too  mean  for  us,"  they  said. 

"  What  became  of  poor  Whitney  when  both  the  church  and  the 
devil  refused  to  receive  him?"  asked  Yillard. 

"When  I  left  Stockbridge  to  go  to  Chicago,"  said  Armour,  "I 
left  poor  Whitney  there,  dangling  between  the  church  and  the 
world.  I  never  heard  of  him  for  years,  till  he  turned  up  in  Kansas. 
He  was  a  mugwump  and  was  making  speeches  in  favor  of  civil 
service." 


SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY. 

Susan  B.  Anthony  always  speaks  extemporaneously.  One  day, 
after  hearing  Prof.  Swing,  Theodore  L.  Cuyler  asked  her  if  she 
remembered  Swing's  sermon. 

"  Remember  it !  "  said  Susan,  "why,  good  gracious,  Brother 
Cuyler,  Prof.  Swing,  like  all  you  clergymen,  couldn't  remember  it 
himself!  He  had  to  have  it  written  down." 


THE  SHAKP  EETOET. 

"Eli  Perkins,"  says  Alex.  Sweet,  "was  wounded  at  Gettysburg 
by  a  minie-ball  through  his  right  leg.  The  other  day  Eli  made  a 
nice  retort  when  an  editor  maliciously  referred  to  his  game  leg. 


562  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  It's  not  fair, "  said  Eli,  "  for  you  to  attack  my  weakest  part, 
Did  I  ever  attack  your  brains  ? " 


BELMONT     ND  BUFFALO  BILL. 

One  day  Belmont,  the  agent  of  the  Rothschilds,  asked  Buffalo- 
Bill  if  he  ever  saw  a  pack  of  live  wolves. 

"  Been  chased  by  'um  hundreds  of  times,  sir.  Once  I  'lowed  it  was. 
all  up  with  us.  The  bronchos  was  runnin'  so  fast  that  they  almost 
spun  the  wheels  off  en  the  buckboard;  but  the  wolves  gained  on  us  at 
every  jump.  Then,  as  a  last  desperate  resort,  jest  as  the  raveninr 
animals  was  surroundin'  us,  I  took  the  stranger  who  was  ridin'  with 
us  by  the  neck  an'  pitched  him  out.  Jest  as  he  lit,  I  heered  him 
holler:  '  I'm  a  real  estate  agent.'  " 

"  Of  course  they  tore  him  to  pieces  before  your  eyes,"  said 
Belmont. 

"  Nope!  They  all  shook  hands  with  him,  called  him  brother, 
an'  asked  him  how  business  was  up  in  Kansas." 


BAYARD  TAYLOR'S  JOKE. 

Bayard  Taylor  and  a  party  of  American  students  were  on  the 
railroad  platform  at  Heidelberg.  One  of  the  American  students 
happened  to  crowd  a  Heidelberg  student,  when  he  drew  himself  up 
scowled  pompously,  and  said: 

"  Sir,  you  are  crowding  ;  keep  back,  sir." 

"  Don't  you  like  it,  sonny  ?  "asked  the  American. 

"Sir!"  scowled  the  pompous  German  student,  pushing  a  card 
into  the  face  of  Bayard  Taylor,  uallow  me  to  tell  you,  sir,  that  I 
am  at  your  service  at  any  time  and  place." 

"  Oh,  you  are  at  my  service,  are  you  \ "  said  Taylor.  "  Then  just 
carry  this  satchel  to  the  hotel  for  me !" 


COX,  BUTLER,  GREELEY. 

In  1865  there  seemed  to  be  no  end  of  trouble  between  Sam  Cox 
and  Ben  Butler.    They  had  a  wrangle  in  the  House  every  day.  One 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  563 

day  Cox  was  particularly  loaded  for  Ben.  He  had  a  speech  full  of 
sarcasm  and  cutting  rebuke.  He  ridiculed  Butler's  Dutch  Gap 
Canal  and  his  spoons  experience  in  New  Orleans.  To  give  empha- 
sis to  his  speech,  Sam  would  reach  his  right  hand  high  above  his 
head  and  shake  his  open  fingers  as  they  radiated  like  the  spokes  of 
a  wagon  wheel. 

Well,  old  Ben  sat  through  the  speech  with  his  one  good  eye  half 
shut,  not  moving  a  muscle.  When  Cox  had  finished  and  taken  his 
seat,  Ben  rose — calm,  dignified  and  impressive — and  stood  in  the 
aisle.  For  a  half  minute  he  said  nothing.  Then  he  began: 

"  Mr.  Speaker." 

Another  pause,  long  and  ponderous.  Every  body  waited,  with 
hushed  breath,  for  him  to  continue.  Raising  his  arm,  Ben  repro- 
duced exactly  the  awful  shaky  gesture  of  Cox.  Then  he  permitted 
his  arms  to  fall  again  and  for  another  half  minute  stood  still  and 
silent. 

"  That  is  all,  Mr.  Speaker,"  said  the  shrewd  and  sarcastic  son  of 
Massachusetts.  "I  just  wanted  to  answer  the  gentleman  from 
Ohio." 

Judging  from  the  wild  laughter  and  applause  which  followed,  old 
Ben's  speech  was  at  once  the  shortest  and  the  best  ever  delivered 
in  the  Lower  House. 

But  Cox  got  even  with  Butler. 

Not  long  after  this,  Butler  had  been  making  a  long  speech  on  the 
tariff.  Every  body  was  tired,  but  Ben  would  suffer  no  one  to  inter- 
rupt him.  In  fact,  by  the  courtesy  of  the  House,  no  one  can  inter- 
rupt a  speaker  unless  to  ask  a  question,  and  that  with  the  consent 
of  the  speaker.  So  Butler  continued  his  tariff  harangue.  After 
about  an  hour  had  passed,  Mr.  Cox  arose  and  said  in  a  loud  tone: 

"  Mr.  Speaker !  " 

"  The  gentleman  from  Ohio,"  said  the  Speaker. 

"  I  arise,"  said  Mr.  Cox,  "  on  a  question  of  privilege.  I  wish  to 
ask  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  a  question." 

"  The  gentleman  from  Ohio,"  said  the  Speaker,  turning  to  But- 
ler, "  wishes  to  ask  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  a  question." 

"  Yery  well,  go  on !  "  said  Butler. 

"  The  gentleman  from  Ohio  has  the  floor,"  said  the  Speaker. 

Mr.  Cox  then  arose  solemnly  and  said: 

"  Mr.  Speaker:     I  wish  to  ask  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts 


564  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

a  question.  I  wish  to  ask  him  if  he  hasn't hasn't got  m-o-s-t 

t-h-r-o-u-g-h  ? " 

This  was  followed  by  such  a  scream  of  laughter  that  Butler 
never  finished  his  speech,  and  Sam  had  his  revenge. 

This  is  the  way  Ben  Butler  and  Horace  Greeley  met: 

Butler  saw  Greeley  standing  in  a  crowd  one  day,  in  front  of  the 
Astor  House,  and  wishing  to  have  a  little  innocent  fun  with  him, 
walked  up  to  the  group  and,  taking  the  Tribune  philosopher  by  the 
hand,  said : 

"  Mr.  Greeley  and  I,  gentlemen,  are  old  friends.  "We  have  drank 
a  good  deal  of  brandy  and  water  together." 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Greeley,  "that  is  true  enough,  General,  you 
drank  the  brandy  and  I  drank  the  water.'' 

Sam  Cox  was  a  great  political  favorite.  He  was  famous  for  mov- 
ing into  new  congressional  districts  and  starting  a  canvass.  The 
following  good  story  is  told  in  regard  to  this  peculiarity.  One  day 
Mr.  Frank  Carpenter,  the  correspondent  who  has  written  such  won- 
derful and  interesting  letters  from  China  and  India,  called  on  Mr. 
Cox.  It  was  just  after  his  election  in  a  new  district.  Mr.  Carpen- 
ter was  not  recognized  by  Mr.  Cox  during  this  solemn  interview  : 

"  Your  name,"  said  Mr.  Carpenter,  in  an  assumed  bass  voice,  "  is 
Cox?" 

"  I  have  the  honor." 

"S.  S.  Cox?" 

"The  same." 

"  Sometimes  called  Sunset  Cox  ? " 

"  That  is  a  sobriquet  by  which  I  am  known  among  my  more 
familiar  friends." 

"  You  formerly  resided  in  Columbus,  Ohio  ? " 

"  That  happiness  was  once  mine." 

"  Eepresented  that  district  in  Congress  ? " 

"I  enjoyed  that  distinguished  honor,  and,  I  may  add,  at  a  some- 
what early  age." 

"  After  a  while  they  gerrymandered  the  district  so  as  to  make  it 
quite  warm  for  an  aspiring  democrat?  " 

"  You  have  evidently  read  the  history  of  your  country  to  good 
purpose,  my  friend." 

"Then  you  moved  to  Xew  York,  where  you  stood  a  better 
show?" 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  565 

"  "Well,  my  friend,  your  premise  is  correct.  I  did  move  to  New 
York.  But  your  conclusion  is  hardlv  admissible  in  the  form  of  a 

«/  «/ 

necessary  sequence.  My  reasons  for  moving  to  New  York  were  not 
wholly  political." 

"We  won't  discuss  that.  After  unsuccessfully  trying  the  State- 
at-large  you  availed  yourself  of  the  opportunity  afforded  by  the 
death  of  the  Hon.  James  Brooks  to  move  into  his  district  2 " 

"  I  moved  into  the  district  formerly  represented  by  the  honorable 
gentleman  you  name,  but  again  I  must  dissent  from  your  con- 
clusions." 

"  Let  that  pass.  You  were  elected  to  Congress  from  Mr.  Brooks' 
former  district  2 " 

"  I  was.  But  let  me  remark,  my  friend,  that  at  this  moment  my 
time  is  very  much  occupied.  Your  resume  of  my  biography,  faulty 
as  some  of  your  deductions  are  in  point  of  logic,  is  deeply  interest- 
ing to  me,  and  at  a  time  of  greater  freedom  from  pressing  engage- 
ments I  would  be  glad  to  canvass  the  subject  with  you  at  length. 
But  just  now,  being  unusually  busy,  even  for  me,  I  must  request  you 
to  state  the  precise  object  of  your  visit,  and  let  me  add  that  I  shall 
be  glad  to  serve  you." 

"  I  have  no  favor  to  ask,"  said  Mr.  Carpenter,  gravely.  "  I  am 
an  admirer  of  yours.  I  always  vote  for  you,  and  always  want  to  do 
so  if  I  can.  I  called  this  morning  mer<  ly  to  inquire  if  you  had 
selected  your  ne*t  district." 

Mr.  Cox  simply  looked  astounded. 

154  Yes,  Mr.  Cox,"  continued  Carpenter,  "I'm  your  friend.  I'm 
glad  to  see  you.  I  want  to  shake  your  hand.  My  brother  and  I 
have  watched  you  these  last  thirty -five  years,  and  I  must  say  I  have 
a  great  admira  Jon  for  you.  Why,  I  believe  you're  the  luckiest 
man  I  ever  saw ;  ;ndeed,  I  do.  j.  was  in  the  gallery  the  day  you 
were  sworn  in  as  a  ne\v  member,  back  in  1857.  My  brother  lived 
in  Ohio,  and  he  had  written  tc  me  all  about  you,  and  so  I  watched 
you  as  soon  as  I  could  pick  you  out  on  the  floor.  Then  I  remember, 
wher  the  Democrat^  went  to  pieces  in  Ohio  under  Yallandigham's 
leadership,  you  jumped  over  tc  New  York.  I  thought  it  was  a  mighty 
reckless  thing  to  do,  but  bl^ss  my  soul  if  you  weren't  back  here 
again  in  1869.  Then  you  took  it  into  your  head  to  spread  your- 
self over  all  New  York  State  in  1872,  and  you  ran  for  congress- 
man-at-large.  I  was  awful  sorry  when  Lyman  Tremain  beat  you, 


566  KtXGS  OF  TEE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPI?. 

but  I  declare,  if  old  Brooks,  of  the  Express,  didn't  go  off  and  die  on 
account  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  censure,  and  when  Congress  met  in 
1873  you  rushed  in,  got  the  nomination  to  his  vacant  seat,  and 
blamed  if  you  weren't  sworn  in,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  with  Lyman 
Tremain,  the  man  who  beat  you  for  congressman-at-large.  Yes, 
sir,  there  you  two  stood,  side  by  side,  and  then  you  went  out  when 
Cleveland  appointed  you  to  Turkey,  but  you  got  tired  over  there, 
came  back  home,  found  that  Mr.  Pulitzer,  of  the  World,  wanted  to 
resign  his  seat  and  you  went  right  in  and  were  elected  to  fill  the 
vacancy.  I  never  saw  the  like !  Why  you've  got  the  greatest  luck  I 
ever  saw,  I  swear." 

«  But,  my  friend " 

"  Hear  me,  Mr.  Cox.  I  admire  you.  I  believe  you  could  float 
clear  around  Cape  Horn  on  a  shingle  without  wetting  your  coat- 
tail" 

The  last  sentence  so  delighted  Cox  that  he  put  his  arms  right 
around  Carpenter  and  exclaimed: 

"  Admire  me  ? — why  I  love  you,  Carp  ! " 


CLAEA  MOEEIS'  JOKE  ON  MAEY  ANDEESON. 

Clara  Morris  says  Mary  Anderson  stepped  up  to  a  type-writer 
of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  and  asked  her  to  write  a  letter  for  her 
to  Narragansett  Pier. 

"  How  do  you  spell  it,  Miss  Anderson? "  asked  the  type-writer. 

"  O,  any  one  can  spell  it — N-a-r-r-o O,  you  spell  it  your 

self!" 

"  But  I  can't ! "  said  the  type-writer. 

"  Can't  you  write  the  letter  if  I  don't  spell  it  I " 

"No." 

u  Then  I'll  go  to  Newport  1 " 


LINCOLN  AND  STANTON. 

When  they  were  selecting  the  Quaker  Indian  commissioners,. 
Lincoln  called  in  Chase  and  Stanton  and  explained  what  kind  of 
men  he  wanted  to  appoint. 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.  567 

"  Gentlemen,  for  an  Indian  commissioner,"  said  the  President, 
"  I  want  a  pure-minded,  moral,  Christian  man — frugal  and  self-sac- 
rificing." 

"  I  think,"  interrupted  Stanton,  "  that  you  won't  find  him." 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"Because,  Mr.  President,  he  was  crucified  about  1,800  years 
ago." 


JEFF  DAYIS  SEES  HUMOK. 

"  The  most  humorous  thing  I  ever  heard  of,"  said  Jefferson  Davis, 
"  was  the  surprising  humor  of  one  of  Joe  Johnson's  soldiers  from 
Georgia." 

"  How  was  it  ? "  asked  General  Beauregard. 

"  Well  they  bucked  and  gagged  this  Georgia  soldier  for  stealing 
chickens,  but  he  screamed  with  laughter  as  soon  as  they  took  the 
gag  out.  Then  they  tied  him  up  by  the  thumbs  but  all  the  time  he- 
laughed  louder  and  louder." 

"  *  What  are  you  laughing  at  ? '  asked  the  officer. 

"  Breaking  into  louder  and  more  hilarious  laughter,  he  screamed,. 
1  Why  I'm  the  wrong  man  1 ' " 


PRESIDENT  ARTHUR  HEARS  AN  ELOQUENT  REPLY. 

When  President  Arthur  was  practicing  law  in  New  York,  before 
he  became  President,  he  defended  a  poor  Irish  woman,  who  was  to 
be  "  sent  up  "  for  vagrancy.  She  was  a  good  woman,  but  could  get 
no  work.  Judge  Brady  was  very  severe  on  the  woman,  and  cross- 
examined  her  somewhat  rudely,  Arthur  thought. 

"  Have  you  any  means  of  support,  madam  ? "  asked  Judge  Brady,, 
severely. 

"  Well,  yer  honor,"  she  replied,  quietly  "  I  have  three,  to  tell  the 
truth." 

"  Three ! " 

"Yissor." 

"What  are  they?" 

"  Me  two  hands,  yer  honor,"  answered  the  poor  creature,  "  me 
good  health  and  me  God  ! " 

"  Tears  came  into  Brady's  eyes,"  said  Arthur,  "as  he  waived  the 
woman  away." 


5G8  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PUPILT. 


HENRY  WATTERSON  ON  OSCAR  WILDE. 

One  night  Oscar  Wilde  was  in  Washington,  and  there  were  many 
senators  and  congressmen  present.  The  long-haired  aesthetic  was 
delivering  himself  of  an  eloquent  tirade  against  the  invasion  of  the 
sacred  domain  of  art  by  the  meaner  herd  of  trades-people  and  mis- 
cellaneous nobodies,  and  finalhT,  rising  to  an  Alpine  height  of  scorn, 
exclaimed : 

"  Ay,  all  of  you  here  are  Philistines — mere  Philistines!" 

"What  does  Oscar  call  us?"  asked  Henry  Watterson  of  John 
Sherman,  who  sat  in  front 

"  He  calls  us  Philistines,"  said  Sherman,  softly. 

"  I  see,"  said  Watterson,  "we  are  Philistines,  and  that,  I  reckon, 
is  why  we  are  being  assaulted  with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass." 


GENERAL  SHERIDAN  ON  GENERAL  SCOTT. 

General  Scott  was,  perhaps,  the  proudest  man  in  the  Union  army. 
He  never  appeared  except  in  a  full-dress  uniform,  covered  with  gilt 
spangles  and  buttons.  Sheridan,  Sherman  and  Grant  were  just  the 
opposite.  Horace  Porter,  who  was  present,  says  :  "  Grant  received 
General  Lee's  sword  at  Appomattox  while  dressed  in  a  common 
soldier's  blouse.5' 

"  One  day,"  said  Sheridan,  who  had  been  talking  about  General 
Scott's  vanity,  "one  day  General  Scott  called  on  a  lady  away  out 
in  the  suburbs  of  Washington.  Her  little  boy  had  never  seen  a 
soldier,  especially  such  a  resplendent  soldier  as  General  Scott. 
When  the  General  rang  the  bell,  the  boy  answered  it.  As  he  pulled 
open  the  door,  there  stood  the  General  in  gilded  epaulets,  yellow 
sash  and  a  waving  plume  on  his  hat. 

"  Tell  your  mother,  little  man,"  said  the  General,  u  to  please 
come  to  the  door  a  moment;  I  want  to  speak  to  her." 

Charlie  went  up-stairs  and  appeared  before  his  mother,  with  the 
most  awe-struck  face. 

"  Mamma,  some  one  at  the  door  wants  to  see  you,"  he  said, 
tremblingly. 

"  Who  is  it,  my  son  ? " 

"  O,  I  don't  know,  mamma,  but  I  dess  it's  Dod." 


A  HUNDRED  ANECDOTES  OF  A  HUNDRED  MEN.      569 

GENERAL  BRAGG  ON  GENERAL  PRICE. 

General  Bragg  says  General  Price's  army  was  about  worn  out  at 
Pea  Ridge.  His  soldiers  straggled  all  over  the  field.  Price  rode  up 
in  the  midst  of  all  the  disorder  and  shouted  : 

u  Close  up,  boys  !  d — n  you,  close  up  !  If  the  Yankees  were  to 
fire  on  you  when  you're  straggling  along  that  way  they  couldn't  hit 
a  d — n  one  of  you !  Close  up !  " 


GENERAL  LEE  AND  JEFFERSON  DAVIS. 

"  "We  made  a  great  mistake/'  said  General  Lee  to  Jeff  Davis,  "in 
the  beginning  of  our  struggle,  and  I  fear,  in  spite  of  all  we  can  do, 
it  will  prove  to  be  a  fatal  mistake." 

"  "What  mistake  is  that,  General  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Davis. 

"  Why,  sir,  in  the  beginning  we  appointed  all  our  worst  generals 
to  command  the  armies  and  all  our  best  generals  to  edit  newspapers. 
&s  you  know,  I  have  planned  some  campaigns  and  quite  a  number  of 
battles.  I  have  given  the  work  all  the  care  and  thought  I  could,  and 
sometimes,  when  my  plans  were  completed,  as  far  as  I  could  see, 
they  seemed  to  be  perfect.  But  when  I  have  fought  them  through, 
I  have  discovered  defects  in  advance.  When  it  was  all  over,  I  found, 
by  reading  a  newspaper,  that  these  best  editor-generals  saw  all  the 
defects  plainly  from  the  start.  Unfortunately,  they  did  not  com- 
municate their  knowledge  to  me  until  it  was  too  late."  Then,  after 
a  pause,  he  added  :  "  I  have  no  ambition  but  to  serve  the  Confeder- 
acy ;  I  do  all  I  can  to  win  our  independence.  I  am  willing  to  serve 
in  any  capacity  to  which  the  authorities  may  assign  me.  I  have 
done  the  best  I  could  in  the  field,  but  I  am  willing  to  yield  my 
place  to  these  best  generals,  and  I  will  do  my  best  for  the  cause 
editing  a  newspaper." 


LINCOLN'S  COLORED  VISITOR. 

"  One  clay  an  old  negro,  clad  in  rags  and  carrying  a  burden  on 
his  head,  ambled  into  the  Executive  Mansion  and  dropped  his  load 
on  the  floor.  Stepping  toward  President  Lincoln,  he  said  : 

"'  Am  you  de  President,  sah  ?' 


570  KINGS  OF  THE  PLATFORM  AND  PULPIT. 

"  Being  answered  in  the  affirmative,  he  said  : 

u  '  If  dat  am  a  fac',  I'se  glad  ter  meet  yer.  Yer  see,  I  libs  way 
up  dar  in  de  back  ob  Fergenna,  an'  I'se  a  poor  man,  sah.  I  hear 
dar  is  some  pervishuns  in  de  Con'stution  fer  de  cullud  man,  and  I  am 
'ere  to  get  some  ob  'em,  sah.' " 


SHEKMAN  IN  EAKKEST. 

"  What  would  you  do  if  you  were  I  and  I  were  you  ?  "  tenderly 
inquired  a  young  swell  of  grizzled  old  General  Sherman. 

"  Well,"  said  the  General,  putting  on  his  glasses  and  taking  a  long 
look  at  it,  as  it  stood  there  sucking  the  head  of  its  cane,  "  I'll  tell 
you  what  I'd  do.  If  I  were  you  I  would  throw  away  that  vile  cig- 
aret,  cut  up  my  cane  for  firewood,  wear  my  watch-chain  underneath 
my  coat,  and  stay  at  home  nights  and  pray  for  brains." 


UNIVERSITY 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


27 


Series  9482 


3  120502111  9449 


"c  ilTiiTi  Mii  *\S\\  iii IBRARY  FACILITY 
AA    000868311 2 


